On June 2nd 1966 the Four Queens Hotel & Casino opened on Fremont Street, downtown Las Vegas. The casino was named after the four daughters of the founder and president Ben Goffstein. In turn, they were named after a queen from a pack of cards: Michele (the eldest) was the Queen of Spades, Benita the […]
On 24 May 1955 the Moulin Rouge Hotel and Casino opened. It was located at at 900, Bonanza Road on the west side of Las Vegas; becoming what the promoters called “the nation’s first major interracial hotel”. Opening to standing-room only mixed crowds, the night stage show included the stage show an all African American […]
On 23 May 1955 the Dunes Hotel and Casino opened – the 10th resort on the Strip, and Las Vegas was booming! Two other casinos had opened in the previous month, the Riviera and Royal Nevada, and the off-Strip Moulin Rouge was planned for the following day. The Dunes was themed on the stories of […]
On May 3rd, 1999, the Venetian Hotel and casino opened its doors to the sounds of trumpets and singing gondoliers! The Venetian is located where the Sands Hotel and Casino used to stand. Construction started in 1997 and the final building comprised of 3,036 rooms, was 35 storys high and eventually cost $1.5 billion – making […]
On April 24th 1950, Wilbur Clark’s Desert Inn opened its doors and became the fifth major resort on the Strip. While it had taken a couple of years to complete the construction due to money troubles, the final building was a place of luxury and offered 300 hotel rooms. The resort also provided views of […]
On April 18th 2006, Red Rock Resort in Summerlin opened its doors. Named after the local Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, it was built at a cost of $925 million. It has a contemporary design involving a desert-themed influence, although there are touches of old style Las Vegas incorporating luxurious chandeliers, the one in […]
On April 12th 1981, Joe Louis passed away in Las Vegas. Born in Lafayette, Alabama, in 1914, Joe and his family moved away from the discrimination they encountered when he was still young to settle in Detroit. Joe was world heavyweight champion for 12 years, when the average reign was just 3, starting from when […]
On April 4th 1955 the newly renamed Hotel New Frontier opened its doors after a major refurbishment. Located opposite where the Encore now stands, it had originally opened as the Last Frontier on Highway 91 a year, where once the Pair O’Dice had sat. Its slogan was ‘Out of this World’ with a futuristic-space styled […]
On April 3rd 1941, the El Rancho Vegas opened on Highway 91, (opposite today’s Sahara Hotel and Casino) on what was to become the Las Vegas Strip; the first large successful hotel and casino operation outside of downtown Las Vegas. The El Rancho Vegas was also the first true ‘resort’, built in an Old West […]
Sarann Knight Preddy (1920-2014) was an entrepreneur, civil rights activist, and the first black woman to receive a gaming license in Nevada. In 1950, she and her husband moved to Hawthorne, Nevada where she received her gaming license for the Tonga Club; the town’s only gaming establishment for African Americans. When Sarann returned to Las […]
