Welcome
to Fabulous Las Vegas! So reads one of the world’s most
famous and photographed signs which greets drivers at the far south end
of The Strip asthey head towards Mandalay Bay, The Luxor, MGM Grand, New
York New York,The Bellagio, Paris, The Venetian, the Mirage, and numerous
other mega-casino resorts on the way to The Riviera. While Las Vegas
is one of the conference capitals of the world, this is the first time
the WHA has met in the city. When the organization was founded in
1961 the Las Vegas Valley had about 65,000 residents. More than four decades
later the WHA has grown much larger, to be sure, and theValley has experienced
a demographic explosion—its population now stands at over 1.7 million.
Las Vegas! The name conjures up a variety of images—neon lights, sparkling and sequined entertainers, gambling at craps tables and slot machines, gourmet dining, sunshine and swimming pools. Las Vegas also conjures up a plethora of labels: including historian Eugene Moehring’s “Resort City in the Sunbelt” and historian Hal Rothman’s “Neon Metropolis,” in addition to the pervasive “Sin City.”
Las Vegas’s history is both lengthy and short. In geologic time, its history extends more than 1.7 billion years, with a fascinating geology you can view throughtours of Valley of Fire and Red Rock Canyon. Humankind has lived in Nevada about 10,000 years. The Southern Paiute tribe has resided in southern Nevada for more than a millennium. They were Las Vegas’s only residents when Rafael Rivera,scouting for Mexican trader Antonio Armijo, became the first known non-NativeAmerican visitor to the valley around New Year’s Day, 1830. Their party pioneered the northern branch of the Old Spanish Trail from New Mexico to California.
Las Vegas’s next important visitor, in May 1844, literally put it on the map and at the heart of Manifest Destiny. John C. Frémont called it Las Vegas, Spanish for “The Meadows.” One reader of his report, Brigham Young, chose Las Vegas for a Mormon mission in 1855. Part of the fort the Mormons built still stands as Nevada’s oldest building. They left within three years, and for the rest of the nineteenth century,Las Vegas consisted of a few widely separated ranches, with the largest run by Helen J. Stewart, whose two decades in the desert earned her the title “The First Lady of Las Vegas.” In 1902, she sold most of her holdings to Montana copper baron William Clark, who planned a Los Angeles-to-Salt Lake railroad to capitalize on the southern California boom. Teaming with the Union Pacific, Clark auctioned lots on a proposed townsite on May 15, 1905, considered Las Vegas’s birthdate—cause for a centennial celebration culminating in May 2005.
Las Vegas depended mainly on the railroad until tourism and federal projects bolstered the local economy and population. In 1931, construction of Hoover Dam brought thousands of new residents in southern Nevada. In World War II, Nevada joined in the West’s transformation through federal projects, culminating during theCold War with the NevadaTest Site. Ironically, some of these projects also served as tourist attractions: millions have visited the dam, often called “the eighth wonderof the world,” and atomic tests became a touristat traction and an icon of popular culture.
However, the real push for tourism resulted in two new state laws in 1931: a six-week residency requirement for divorce and legal gambling. Celebrities soon looked to Las Vegas for divorces and marriages, from Clark Gable in the 1930s to Elvis Presley in the 1960s and Britney Spears in 2004. Casinos dotted Fremont Street in the heart of downtown, with names like the Apache, the Pioneer Club, and the Golden Nugget tied to advertisements of Las Vegas as “still a frontier town” and “the old west in modern splendor.” The first resorts on Highway 91, soon to become known as the Strip, continued that theme with the low-rise El Rancho Vegas and Hotel Last Frontier.
The first big change in the Strip’s history came with the Flamingo’s opening in 1946. Representing Meyer Lansky and other organized crime figures, Bugsy Siegel tookover the hotel’s construction from Hollywood businessman Billy Wilkerson, finished and opened it, and soon was drowning in red ink.The Flamingo’s turnaround came too late to save Siegel, but Lansky and others continued to invest on the old highway to Los Angeles, prompting a building boom in the 1940s and 1950s that created the Strip hotels whose neon burned them into the national consciousness: the Desert Inn with its golf tournaments, the Sands with the“Rat Pack,” and luxurious resorts like the Sahara, Stardust,Tropicana, and Riviera, our host hotel, the Strip’s first high-rise when it was built in 1955.
By the late 1960s, change was in the air. The first major themed Strip resorts,Caesars Palace and Circus Circus, opened. The Corporate Gaming Act enabled publicly traded companies to build or buy casinos, and Kirk Kerkorian entered the market to build The International (now the Hilton) and MGM Grand (now Ballys) in 1973. Howard Hughes and his eccentricities moved into the Desert Inn penthouse, and his purchase of several Strip hotels brought a new aura of respectability to gaming and Nevada.
After federal and state officials exorcised organized crime from gaming in the1970s and 1980s, another building boom loomed. Steve Wynn opened The Mirage in 1989, ushering in a new era of megaresorts and corporate expansion that included his Bellagio and Kerkorian’s new MGM Grand. The result has been a series of themed resorts where tourists visit versions of the Eiffel Tower, the Great Pyramids, Venice, and a medieval castle, among other sites from around the world that may be visible from your hotel room.
Meanwhile, downtown Las Vegas has struggled in ways similar to the older urban areas in most cities. But redevelopment there has included the Fremont Street Experience, a canopy light show, and the recent sale of several older properties to fresh faces with big plans for the city and their casinos. The fun and bright lights continue at neighborhood casinos popular not only with travelers, but with locals.
While Las Vegas continues to reinvent itself, its history survives, as tours of the area will show you. Efforts to preserve older buildings have led to interesting museum exhibits and architecturally unique downtown homes and offices. Nor is Las Vegas’s history limited to its casino districts. Vibrant residential communities stretch from Summerlin in the northwest to Green Valley in the southeast and on to Boulder City, built to house Hoover Dam workers but now a bedroom community. Historical and art museums dot the landscape, including the state museum and historical society, a county museum, railroad and dam museums in Boulder City, stand-alone art galleries, a downtown arts district, and a local library system that brings art to the masses.
Las Vegas also is a polyglot of peoples. Arriving mainly since the 1980s and moving mostly into the older eastern side of town, Latinos comprise nearly one-quarter of the population. African Americans account for about ten percent of LasVegans, and have a history both troubled (Las Vegas leaders segregated them into an area west of the old railroad tracks into the 1960s) and inspiring (a local civil rights movement forced desegregation and has led to greater economic and political opportunities). Asian immigrants have created their own communities within a community, from Asian-language publications to Indian societies. Southern Nevada also boasts one of the nation’s fastest-growing senior populations, with three Sun Cities.
Today, Las Vegas is “the all-American city” to some, “Sodom and Gomorrah” to others. To more than 32 million visitors annually, many coming through the nation’s sixth busiest airport to stay in one of its 125,000+ hotel rooms, it is a gambling, entertainment, and shopping mecca. To 1.7 million residents, it is home, where 268,000 children attend the nation’s sixth-largest school district. To more than thirty history faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Community College of Southern Nevada, and Nevada State College, it is a place to teach about 60,000 students, conduct research, involve ourselves in a community, and welcome our colleagues in the WHA to a conference that promises exciting panels and discussions, a wealth of information and book exhibits, a variety of tours, and opportunities for the finest entertainment and dining. As the sign on the program cover says, welcome to Las Vegas!