Nostalgic Vintage Las Vegas Strip Fremont Street What Happens Here Stays Here 20201130
by Wingsdomain Art and Photography
Title
Nostalgic Vintage Las Vegas Strip Fremont Street What Happens Here Stays Here 20201130
Artist
Wingsdomain Art and Photography
Medium
Photograph - Photoart
Description
Nostalgic Vintage Las Vegas Strip Fremont Street What Happens Here Stays Here 20201130
The first casino to be built on Highway 91 was the Pair-o-Dice Club in 1931, but the first casino-resort on what is currently the Strip was the El Rancho Vegas, which opened with 63 rooms on April 3, 1941 (and was destroyed by a fire in 1960). Its success spawned a second hotel on what would become the Strip, the Hotel Last Frontier in 1942. Organized crime figures such as New York's Bugsy Siegel took interest in the growing gaming center, and funded other resorts such as the Flamingo, which opened in 1946, and the Desert Inn, which opened in 1950. The funding for many projects was provided through the American National Insurance Company, which was based in the then-notorious gambling empire of Galveston, Texas. Las Vegas Boulevard South was previously called Arrowhead Highway, or Los Angeles Highway. The Strip was named by Los Angeles police officer and businessman Guy McAfee, after his hometown's Sunset Strip. In 1950, mayor Ernie Cragin of the City of Las Vegas sought to annex the Strip, which was unincorporated territory, in order to expand the city's tax base to fund his ambitious building agenda and pay down the city's rising debt. Instead, Gus Greenbaum of the Flamingo led a group of casino executives to lobby the Clark County commissioners for town status. Two unincorporated towns were eventually created, Paradise and Winchester. More than two decades later, the Supreme Court of Nevada struck down a 1975 Nevada state law that would have folded the Strip and the rest of the urban areas of Clark County into the City of Las Vegas. Caesars Palace was established in 1966. In 1968, Kirk Kerkorian purchased the Flamingo and hired Sahara Hotels Vice President Alex Shoofey as president. Alex Shoofey brought along 33 of Sahara's top executives. The Flamingo was used to train future employees of the International Hotel, which was under construction. Opening in 1969, the International Hotel, with 1,512 rooms, began the era of mega-resorts. The International is known as Westgate Las Vegas today. The first MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, also a Kerkorian property, opened in 1973 with 2,084 rooms. At the time, this was one of the largest hotels in the world by number of rooms. The Rossiya Hotel built in 1967 in Moscow, for instance, had 3,200 rooms; however, most of the rooms in the Rossiya Hotel were single rooms of 118 sq. ft (roughly 1/4 size of a standard room at the MGM Grand Resort). On November 21, 1980, the MGM Grand suffered the worst resort fire in the history of Las Vegas as a result of electrical problems, killing 87 people. It reopened eight months later. In 1986, Kerkorian sold the MGM Grand to Bally Manufacturing, and it was renamed Bally's. The Wet 'n Wild water park opened in 1985 and was located on the south side of the Sahara hotel. It closed at the end of the 2004 season and was later demolished. The opening of The Mirage in 1989 set a new level to the Las Vegas experience, as smaller hotels and casinos made way for the larger mega-resorts. The Rio and the Excalibur opened in 1990. These huge facilities offer entertainment and dining options, as well as gambling and lodging. This change affected the smaller, well-known and now historic hotels and casinos, like the Dunes, the Sands, and the Stardust. The lights along the Strip have been dimmed in a sign of respect to six performers and one other major Las Vegas figure upon their deaths. They are Elvis Presley (1977), Sammy Davis Jr. (1990), Dean Martin (1995), George Burns (1996), Frank Sinatra (1998), former UNLV basketball head coach Jerry Tarkanian (2015), and Don Rickles (2017). The Strip lights were dimmed later in 2017 as a memorial to victims of a mass shooting at a concert held adjacent to the Strip. In 2005, Clark County renamed a section of Industrial Road (south of Twain Avenue) Dean Martin Drive as a tribute to the famous Rat Pack singer, actor, and frequent Las Vegas entertainer. In an effort to attract families, resorts offered more attractions geared toward youth, but had limited success. The current MGM Grand opened in 1993 with MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park, but the park closed in 2000 due to lack of interest. Similarly, in 2003 Treasure Island closed its own video arcade and abandoned the previous pirate theme, adopting the new ti name. In addition to the large hotels, casinos and resorts, the Strip is home to many attractions, such as M&M's World, Adventuredome and the Fashion Show Mall. Starting in the mid-1990s, the Strip became a popular New Year's Eve celebration destination. -wikipedia
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November 30th, 2020
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