The first reported European visitor to the Las Vegas Valley was Raphael Rivera in 1829. Las Vegas was named by Spaniards in the Antonio Armijo party, who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from Texas. In the 19th century, areas of the valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas or meadows (vegas in Spanish); hence the name Las Vegas.
John C. Frémont traveled into the Las Vegas Valley on May 3, 1844, while it was still part of Mexico. He was a leader of a group of scientists, scouts, and observers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On May 10, 1855, following annexation by the United States, Brigham Young assigned 30 missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led by William Bringhurst to the area to convert the Paiute Indian population to Mormonism. A fort was built near the current downtown area that served as a stopover for travelers along the "Mormon Corridor" between Salt Lake and the briefly thriving colony of saints at San Bernardino, California. Mormons abandoned Las Vegas in 1857, during the Utah War. Las Vegas was established as a railroad town on May 15, 1905, when 110 acres (45 ha) owned by the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was auctioned off in what is now downtown Las Vegas. Among the railroad's most notable owners and directors were Montana Senator William A. Clark, Utah U.S. Senator Thomas Kearns, and R.C. Kerens of St. Louis. Las Vegas was part of Lincoln County until 1908, when it became part of the newly established Clark County. The St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church near 4th and Bridger in downtown was founded in 1910. Las Vegas became an incorporated city on March 16, 1911; Peter Buol was the first mayor.
Las Vegas started as a stopover on the pioneer trails to the west, and became a popular railroad town in the early 20th century. It was a staging point for mines in the surrounding area, especially those around the town of Bullfrog, that shipped goods to the rest of the country. With the proliferation of the railroads, Las Vegas became less important, but the completion of the nearby Hoover Dam in 1935 resulted in growth in the number of residents and increased tourism. The dam, located 30 mi (48 km) southeast of the city, formed Lake Mead, the US's largest man-made lake and reservoir. Today, tours are offered into lesser-known parts of the dam. The legalization of gambling in 1931 led to the advent of the casino hotels for which Las Vegas is famous. Major development occurred in the 1940s, "due almost entirely" to the influx of scientists and staff from the Manhattan Project, an atomic bomb research project of World War II. Atomic test watching parties were sometimes thrown. American organized crime figures such as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Meyer Lansky managed or funded most of the original large casinos. The rapid growth of Las Vegas is credited with dooming Galveston, Texas; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and other major gaming centers in the 1950s.
Postwar boom and organized crime
The Flamingo initially lost money and Siegel died in a hail of gunfire in Beverly Hills, California. Additionally, local police and Clark County Sheriff deputies were notorious for their heavy-handed tactics toward mobsters who "grew too big for their pants." However, many mobsters saw the potential that gambling offered in Las Vegas. From 1952 to 1957, through money and institutional lending provided by the Teamsters Union and some Mormon bankers they built the Sahara, the Sands, the New Frontier, the Royal Nevada, the Showboat, The Riviera, The Fremont, Binion's Horseshoe (which was the Apache Hotel), and finally The Tropicana.
Owned and operated by a joint combine of Mormon elders who provided political and business legitimacy and people involved with organized crime who provided unreported income and street muscle, such as Meyer Lansky these crime hotels became regarded as the epitome of gambling entertainment cite. Even with the general knowledge that some of the owners of these casino resorts had dubious backgrounds, by 1954, over 8 million people were visiting Las Vegas yearly pumping 200 million dollars into casinos. Gambling was no longer the only attraction; the biggest stars of films and music like Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Abbott and Costello, Bing Crosby, Carol Channing, and others performed in intimate settings. After coming to see these stars, the tourists would resume gambling, and then eat at the gourmet buffets that have become a staple of the casino industry.
However, the confluence of various marginal and/or suspected groups such as Jews, Sicilians, and Mormons into the gambling enterprises in Las Vegas and the subsequent cornering of the gambling market in the city by these groups sparked a two-year investigation by Senator Estes Kefauver and his Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce in 1950–51 . The hearing concluded that organized crime money was incontrovertibly tied to the Las Vegas casinos and was becoming the controlling interest in the city thereby earning for the groups vast amounts of income which was strengthening their influence in the country. This led to a proposal by the Senate to institute federal gambling control. Only through the power and influence of Nevada's Senator Pat McCarran did the proposal die in committee.
Along with their connections in Hollywood and New York City, these interests in Las Vegas were able to use publicity provided by these media capitals to steer the rapid growth of tourism into Las Vegas thereby dooming Galveston, Texas; Hot Springs, Arkansas; and other illegal gaming centers around the nation. Nevada's legal gaming as well as the paradoxical increased scrutiny by local and federal law enforcement in these other locales during the 1950s made their demise inevitable.
Atomic testing
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| Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site |
While the Strip was booming, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission on January 27, 1951 detonated the first of over a hundred atmospheric explosions at the Nevada Test Site. These atmospheric tests would continue until enactment of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963 when the tests moved underground. The last test explosion was in 1992. Despite the dangers and risks, greatly under-estimated at the time, of radiation exposure from the fallout, Las Vegas advertised the explosions as another tourist attraction and offered Atomic Cocktails in Sky Rooms that offered a great view of the mushroom clouds.
The influx of government employees for the Atomic Energy Commission and from the Mormon-controlled Bank of Las Vegas spearheaded by E. Parry Thomas during those years funded the growing boom in casinos. But Las Vegas was doing more than growing casinos. In 1948, McCarran Field was established for commercial air traffic. In 1957 The University of Las Vegas was established. In 1959 the Clark County Commission built the Las Vegas Convention Center, which would become a vital part of the area's economy. A new utility company, Southwest Gas expanded into Las Vegas in 1954.
1955–1980: the beginning of modern Las Vegas
Howard Hughes
In 1966, Howard Hughes, the eccentric hero of the American aviation industry, and noted American entrepreneurial financier with vast connections to long established networks in the country, moved to Las Vegas. Initially staying in the Desert Inn, he refused to vacate his room and instead decided to purchase the entire hotel. Hughes extended his financial empire to include Las Vegas real estate, hotels and media outlets, spending an estimated $300 million and using his considerable powers to take-over many of the well known hotels, especially the organized crime connected venues and he quickly became one of the most powerful men in Las Vegas. He was instrumental in changing the image of Las Vegas from its Wild West roots into a more refined cosmopolitan city.
Hank Greenspun
The local newspaper Las Vegas Sun and its editor Hank Greenspun led a crusade in those days to expose all the criminal ties, activities, and government corruption in Las Vegas. His investigative reporting and editorials led to the exposure of Clark County Sheriff Glen Jones' ownership of a brothel and the resignation of Lieutenant Governor Clifford A. Jones as the state's national committeeman for the Democratic Party.
Local government
One problem for the City of Las Vegas was that the Strip did not reside in Las Vegas proper. Because of this, the city lost tax revenue. There was a push to annex the Strip by the City of Las Vegas, but The Syndicate used the Clark County Commissioners to pull a legal maneuver by organizing the Las Vegas Strip properties into an unincorporated township called Paradise. Under Nevada Law, an incorporated town, Las Vegas, cannot annex an unincorporated township. To this day, virtually all of the Strip remains outside the City of Las Vegas.
Desegregation
Much like other American settled counties and towns throughout the United States, entertainment venues were segregated between black and white owned businesses. With almost all of the businesses owned and operated by whites, Black Americans were segregated from entry into the venues which remained focused, regardless of their legitimacy or criminality, on entertaining a white only clientele. As a result of property deeds, non-white owned or customer oriented businesses were confined to clubs on the "west side" of the tracks. This also was enforced in many of the work positions thus, African Americans except those who provided the labor for low-paying menial positions or entertainment and Hispanics were limited in employment occupations at the white owned clubs. However, because of employment deals with black worker groups, many clubs favored Black American workers and the Hispanic population actually decreased ninety-percent from 2,275 to just 236 by the middle 1950s.
However, organized crime-owned groups saw a business opportunity in not dividing their clientele by race and despite property deeds and city and county codes disbarring such activities, made several attempts at de-segregating their businesses in the hopes putting out of operation the non-white owned clubs and expanding their own market share. An attempt at forming an all-integrated night-club modeled on the Harlem Clubs of New York City during the 1920s and 1930s like those owned by Jewish gangster Dutch Schultz was made. On May 24, 1955, Jewish crime bossWil Max Schwartz, along with other investors, opened the Moulin Rouge. It was a very upscale and racially integrated casino that actually competed against the resorts on the Strip especially the non-white owned strips on the west side. However, by the end of the year, the casino closed as Schwartz and his partners had a falling out. But the seeds for racial integration were sown.
Many sources have credited Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack as a significant driving force behind desegregation in the casinos. One famous story tells of Sinatra's refusal to perform at the Sands Hotel unless the hotel provided Sammy Davis Jr. with a room. The famed performing group made similar demands at other venues forcing owners to amend their policies over time.
However, it took political action most often supported by Jewish crime groups for racial desegregation to occur. In 1960, the NAACP threatened a protest of the city's casinos for their policies. A meeting between the NAACP, the mayor and local businessmen resulted in city wide casino desegregation first starting with the employees and many whites were attritioned from positions and their jobs given to the black unions. Along with the rest of the country, Las Vegas experienced the struggle for civil rights. Activists like James B. McMillan, Grant Sawyer, Bob Bailey, and Charles Keller dragged Las Vegas to racial integration.
Another big force for equality was another criminally connected Jewish activist Mayor Oran Gragson. Spurred into local politics by a vigilante ring of cops who repeatedly broke into his appliance store, he implemented infrastructure improvements for the minority neighborhoods in Las Vegas, backed the NAACP in its actions, and promoted black workers for jobs. He also championed the cause of the Pauite tribe that owned a small portion of Las Vegas and stopped the U.S. government from evicting the tribe and actually made infrastructure improvements for them. His work helped reverse the decrease of minority populations in Las Vegas. Local legislation kept up with the national legislation and integration was finally established. The only real violence came as a result of school integration, with violent riots and fights occurring in Clark High School when black gangs and youths began attacking the whites and sparking white flight from the school district from 1965 to 1971.
MGM fire
On November 21, 1980 the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, suffered a devastating fire. A total of 85 people died and 785 were injured in what remains the worst disaster in Nevada history.
Since 1970: explosive growth
On a percentage basis, Las Vegas and Clark County have experienced incredibly high growth rates since the 1930s; the population of the city more than doubled in each decade. The rate slowed down in the 1970s with the decrease of the white birth rate, but never dropped below 60% (1980–1990), and has even accelerated since 1990 due to immigration. By 2000, Las Vegas was the largest city founded in the 20th century, and by 2006 it was the 28th largest city in the US with a population of 552,000 in the city, and nearly 1.8 million in Clark County. The explosive growth has resulted in rapid development of commercial and residential areas throughout the Las Vegas Valley. The strong boom in the resort business led to many new condominium developments all across the strip and downtown area. Also suburban sprawl development of single-family homes continued across the valley building the areas of Henderson, North Las Vegas, Centennial Hills, and Summerlin. During this period of time, American author and journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote and published his seminal novel, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, detailing the experience of his 1971 trip to the city.
Since 1989: the megaresort era
The megaresort era began in 1989 with the construction of The Mirage. Built by developer Steve Wynn, it was the first resort built with money from Wall Street, selling $630 million in junk bonds. Its 3,044 rooms, each with gold tinted windows, set a new standard for Vegas luxury and attracted tourists in droves, leading to additional financing and rapid growth on the Las Vegas Strip. Numerous landmark hotels and other structures were razed to make way for ever-larger and more opulent resorts including:
1990: Rio and Excalibur
1993: MGM Grand Las Vegas, Treasure Island, and Luxor,
1996: Stratosphere Tower and Monte Carlo
1997: New York-New York
1998: Bellagio
1999: Mandalay Bay, The Venetian, and Paris
2000: Aladdin (now Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino.)
2001: Palms
2005: Wynn Las Vegas (opened in April by Wynn Resorts Limited opened its new flagship, the constructed at a cost of US$2.7 billion.)
2007: The Palazzo, Las Vegas
2008: Encore
2009: CityCenter
2010: The Cosmopolitan
Helldorado Days was resumed in 2005 for the City of Las Vegas' centennial celebration.
Late 2000s towards 2010s: the economic bust
Despite the success, the home mortgage crisis and the Late 2000s Recession affected the economic success. Unaffordable housing led to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sub-prime mortgage lending that was unstable and risky, not to mention the speculation and extra loan borrowing influenced by the low interest rates of the Federal Reserve. Soon after, properties were foreclosed, new home construction was stalled, and construction projects were either canceled, postponed, or continued with financial troubles. Some of these projects included the MGM Mirage property of CityCenter, Fontainebleau, Echelon, and The Plaza. Even worse, the global financial situation had a negative effect on gaming and tourism revenue, thus allowing many of the companies to report net loss.
While the city seems to be weathering the unprecedented recession, a slow recovery is predicted, and future concerns such as the water supply in the ongoing drought, diversification of the area economy from tourism and competition from other gaming hot spots continue to be major issues.
Las Vegas has still managed to host many conventions and major events. Las Vegas will be hosting the Latin Grammy Awards up until 2012.
On November 20, 2010, Forbes listed Las Vegas as the worst major city in America to find a job, citing 8.86 unemployed people per advertised job. Las Vegas has been continuously ranked as having the highest unemployment for a major city during the Late-2000s recession, as well as the highest foreclosure rate in the nation.
All about Las Vegas:
Las Vegas
History of Las Vegas
Climate of Las Vegas
Demographics of Las Vegas
Economy of Las Vegas
Tourism of Las Vegas
Downtown Las Vegas
Culture of Las Vegas
Sports in the Las Vegas
Government of Las Vegas
Education in Las Vegas
Transportation in Las Vegas
McCarran International Airport
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