A history of Las Vegas in photos: How it transformed from railroad town to a infamous gambling mecca
Publish date: 2024-08-11
2023-02-10T22:16:00Z 
- Las Vegas went from a barren, desert town to a city of bright lights and casinos in a matter of decades.
- In 1910, Las Vegas had just 800 residents. By 1972, more than 15 million people were visiting each year.
- Several factors contributed to its popularity, including loose gambling laws and ambitious desires to get rich quick.
Before Las Vegas was known for slot machines and neon lights, it was a small desert town without much going for it.
As recently as 1940, Las Vegas only had 8,000 residents. But after World War II, the city expanded rapidly.
Organized crime took advantage of the fact Nevada was the only state in America where casino gambling was legal. They made the city a destination, using celebrity acts, showgirls, and even nuclear testing observation parties to keep people visiting and spending money.
Later, with the help and funding of billionaire Howard Hughes, Las Vegas went straight, but its growth hardly slowed.
Here's how Las Vegas transformed — in a matter of decades — into one of the most iconic cities in the world.
In 1905, the town of Las Vegas was officially settled. This coincided with plans for a railroad that would go through the new town and across the Southwest.
Sources: History.com, New York Times
Las Vegas wasn't an instant success. The boom didn't happen overnight.
Source: History.com
For reference, Fremont Street looked like this just over 50 years later.
By 1910, the town had 800 residents.
Source: History.com
Las Vegas only began to grow properly in the early 1930s. This was because of two major factors — the first was Nevada legalized gambling in 1931.
The boulder club was built in 1929 and received one of the first gambling permits in 1931.
Source: History.com
The second was the Hoover Dam. All week, thousands of workers living in Boulder City would work on building the dam. Then when they got paid, they drove straight to Las Vegas.
Source: History.com
Over the next few decades, there were a few key figures who helped rapidly transform Las Vegas. A former crooked Los Angeles vice squad commander named Guy McAfee was the first. He moved to Las Vegas in 1938.
Sources: History.com, PBS
McAfee ran and opened a number of clubs, including most famously the Golden Nugget.
Sources: History.com, PBS
But perhaps his most important contribution to Las Vegas was calling Highway 91 "the Strip," evoking Los Angeles' famous Sunset Strip.
Sources: History.com, PBS
By 1940, there were about 8,000 residents in Las Vegas. Here, gamblers play the slot machines.
Source: New York Times
In 1941, El Rancho's Vegas opened its doors. This was the first casino-hotel, and according to its sign, it never closed.
Source: History.com
But it was after World War II that Las Vegas really started to become a go-to gambling destination.
Source: New York Times
In 1945, another key figure, gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, decided to build a casino in Las Vegas. Though growing steadily, it was still a fairly sleepy town with loose gambling laws at this point.
Source: New York Times
According to The New York Times, his plan was to make money off "wartime profiteers from the West Coast as they drank, made hogs of themselves and dared the house odds."
Source: New York Times
He named his casino "The Flamingo" after his girlfriend Virginia Hill, an actress who was called "The Flamingo" because of her long legs.
Sources: New York Times, New York Times
The Flamingo struggled to begin. Siegel had to use mob funds to keep the doors open. The use of these funds would reportedly later cost him his life.
Source: New York Times
But when the casino began to make a profit, other investors — often mob-related — took note.
Here, the sign reads, "In the past 12 months Nevada Club has already paid nearly $1,500,000 in jackpots to nearly a quarter million players."
Source: New York Times
Las Vegas became a popular tourist destination in the 1950s. Here the strip appears teeming in 1953.
Source: New York Times
The sudden increase in popularity was due to a number of factors, including new highways, burgeoning commercial air travel, and air conditioning making the desert heat more bearable.
Source: New York Times
Throughout this decade and into the 1960s, the number of casinos grew rapidly — the Sands, the Sahara, the New Frontier, and the Riviera all opened.
Source: Culture Trip
The neon lights and signs kept getting bigger. Here, the strip is brightly lit down the Las Vegas strip in 1964.
During this period, Las Vegas still had an advantage over the rest of America. Nevada was the only state where it was legal to have gambling casinos. This didn't change until the 1970s.
Source: History.com
The Mob took advantage of this by "skimming" their profits, meaning they declared less than they earned to the government and kept the difference.
Source: History.com
To keep the money coming in, casinos started promoting celebrities, including the Beatles and Elvis Presley.
Source: History.com
And using showgirls as a regular form of entertainment.
Source: History.com
Between 1951 and 1962, casinos went as far as promoting nuclear testing. This included desert picnics and themed cocktails — the atomic cocktail was made of vodka, sherry, brandy, and champagne.
Sources: History.com, New York Times
All of this helped keep Las Vegas growing, but the mob's hold on the city couldn't last forever.
In 1966, Las Vegas began to go straight when billionaire Howard Hughes started buying casinos across the city.
"When Mr. Hughes stepped in and bought all these hotels, it gave Las Vegas an immediate legitimate feeling, that an honest man had taken over the town," Hughes' friend Perry Lieber told the Los Angeles Times in 1986.
Source: Los Angeles Times
Hughes didn't have to go through the same processes as everyone else.
In fact, at a midnight meeting held for one of his license applications in 1967, District Attorney George Franklin said, "This is the best way to improve the image of gambling in Nevada by licensing an industrialist of his stature."
Source: Las Vegas Review Journal
Hughes was stopped by the federal government from buying as many casinos as he would have liked, but he did purchase the Frontier, the Sands, the Desert Inn, Castaway, the Silver Slipper Casino, and Landmark casinos.
Source: Los Angeles Times
All the while Las Vegas kept growing at a rapid pace. Between 1960 and 1970 the metropolitan area where Las Vegas more than doubled — rising from 127,016 people to 273,288.
Source: New York Times
By 1972, more than 15 million people were traveling to Las Vegas. It was the fastest growing metropolitan area in America.
Source: New York Times
As Charles Strickland, a second lieutenant, told the New York Times: "Las Vegas is where losers come to win and winners come to lose."
Source: New York Times
By the 1980s, Las Vegas was no longer the only gambling city in America. In 1978, the first casino in Atlantic City opened.
Source: History.com
But that didn't matter. By then, Las Vegas had transformed from a dusty desert town into the most famous gambling city in the world in a matter of decades
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7o8HSoqWeq6Oeu7S1w56pZ5ufonytrdJmrZ6fkah6qbXSraarsV2pv6K60p%2Bmq6WVmXqzrcilqaiZlGLBsMPNZqWor12crq6uy6KloGWdmrCkrYxrZ2trXWc%3D