The History of Hotels in Las Vegas
Tommy Hull opened the first hotel in Las Vegas in 1941. El Ranchero Las Vegas featured a neon windmill on the roof. A casino was added as an afterthought. This humble beginning would eventually lead to the creation of one of the most popular tourist destinations in America.
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Origins
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Hull decided to build a hotel when his car broke down in 1938. In the hot dessert climate, he wished there was a pool he could jump into. A few years later, El Ranchero Las Vegas opened its doors in the same spot his car broke down.
The Flamingo
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Los Angeles nightclub owner Billy Wilkerson wanted to re-create the Sunset Strip in Las Vegas. He partnered with gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel to open The Flamingo, the second hotel in Las Vegas, in 1946.
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The 1950s
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Many of Las Vegas' iconic hotels were built in the 1950s, including the Sands, the Dunes, the Tropicana and the Stardust.
Implosions
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Las Vegas has a long tradition of imploding buildings with great fanfare to make way for new ones.
New Hotels
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The Venetian opened in 1999 on the former site of the Sands. The Bellagio opened in 1998 where the Dunes once stood.
Today
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Today Las Vegas boasts more than 150,000 hotel rooms, more than twice the number available in New York City.
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References
- Photo Credit By Matthew Field at Wikimedia Commons
