History of Las Vegas Hotels - You Can Still Get The Best Deals!<<>>
The History of Las Vegas hotels goes back to the time the Hoover Dam was being built back in 1928.
Thousands of workers came to Nevada looking for work connected with the dam.
In 1931, gambling became legal once more in the state and the then Fremont Street's gaming casinos attracted the workers from the Hoover Dam.
The mobster Bugsy Siegel is the man who is credited with first developing Las Vegas.
In the 1940’s he took some already existing gambling properties, which he developed and added to. It has since grown into the gambling capital of the USA.
He promoted the town as the Wild West combined with glamour.
His Hollywood connections helped the town grow and become a playground for celebrities. El Rancho Vegas hotel was built in 1941 right across the street from where the Sahara is today. Throughout the 1940's, the El Rancho became a place where Hollywood stars came to relax. In 1947, Siegel opened the Flamingo Hotel and its showroom boasted many headline entertainers, such as Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, and Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Hotel growth was phenomenal during the 1950's as the town was moving from a frontier type saloon to a center of entertainment. Entertainers such as Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen brought elegance with them and builders started to add golf courses and tennis courts to the hotels. Throughout its history Las Vegas hotels best deals policy has been to fill the rooms and this has been done by adapting to the changing times. In 1952, the Binion Horseshoe Club opened and would later become famous as the home of the World Poker Series. In 1955, the Showboat Hotel opened boasting that they had the best buffet in town, as well as a bowling alley and twenty four hour bingo games. In 1956, Elvis Presley appeared at the New Frontier, but his fans were too young at the time to appreciate the shows. The Riviera was the ninth hotel to open in 1957 and Liberace was the headliner act at most of the shows. In 1958, the 1,065 room, 10 million dollar Stardust hotel was opened and the legendary Wayne Newton got his start in Las Vegas. The show that opened at the Stardust was“Lido de Paris” the longest running show ever in Las Vegas. Growing competition for tourist money also brought lots of sporting events to the town. The 1950's saw the start of the PGA Tournament of Champions for golfing. Also, the wedding chapel business took off and Las Vegas became a popular destination to go and tie the knot. A lot of celebrities sparked this takeoff in weddings getting married there themselves. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward are just one of the couples that took advantage of the wedding chapels in Las Vegas.
Some of these machines would accept up to a $500 token and the jackpots grew over time from $100 to the huge sums of today. In the 1960's, the Sands Hotel invited the Rat Pack, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr, Joey Bishop, and Peter Lawford , to be the headline act while the group was in town filming ‘Ocean's Eleven’. The building boom took a brief rest when the El Rancho burned down in 1960 and it wasn't until 1966 that another hotel was built. The Aladdin was opened and was quite an exotic Arabian Night type of hotel.
Howard Hughes burst into town in the late 60's and went on a shopping spree buying up land and hotels costing more than $300 million. Circus Circus opened in 1968 and boasted circus acts every hour right over the casino floors. Elvis Presley returned in 1969 to the International showroom and his fans had grown up enough to enjoy the show. In 1971, the Union Plaza, a 500-room hotel, opened at the head of Fremont Street and Merv Griffin started taping his shows at Caesar's Palace. He made the city a little more famous by bringing it into people's homes each night on the television. 1973 saw Siegfried and Roy's first show open at the Tropicana, and they delighted everyone as they turned women into tigers in their show “Folies Begere.” They became world-class illusionists in their own right. Dollar slot machines were brought out at the end of the decade. However, the 1970's also brought two major disasters to Las Vegas. The first was a flash flood that hit the main strip and wound up costing more than $1 million in damage.
The second was that gambling was legalized in Atlantic City and this took a lot of customers away from Las Vegas.
McCarran airport had just started a twenty-year, $785 million expansion plan. Siegfried and Roy started in their own show, “Beyond Belief,” that ran for six years at the Frontier as they played a record breaking 3,500+ shows to sell-out crowds every night. Steve Wynn opened the Mirage Hotel in 1989 with its five-story waterfall, lagoons, and tropical foliage. A fifty-foot volcano that erupted nightly in an explosion of color fronted the hotel. Steve also invited the popular Siegfried and Roy to come and headline at his hotel. The 1990's brought us the Excalibur that along with the Circus Circus was bringing the family attitude to Las Vegas. With its pageantry and medieval background, the hotel was perfect for kids. Also in the 1990s came the Luxor, the MGM Grand Hotel and Treasure Island. In 1995, Fremont Street Experience was completed and the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino opened. It was billed as the first rock and roll hotel. 1996 brought the Monte Carlo and the 1149-foot Stratosphere Hotel. The New York New York arrived in 1997 with its Manhattan skyline and scale size replica of the Statue of Liberty. Between the years of 1998 and 1999, the CEOs of Las Vegas took a look at the growing town and decided to add on to the family vacation market a luxury resort capital. Las - Vegas hotels that have opened after this time reflect this attitude. The Bellagio, Venetian, and Paris Las Vegas were all built to follow this trend.
The Luxor, Caesar's Palace, Mandelay Bay and other hotels have all added hundreds of rooms for even more tourists to enjoy. Over the coming years even more luxurious hotels will be opening as Las Vegas adapts to the changing times. One thing is sure Las - Vegas will keep on growing and making more money every year.
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