History of Las Vegas

Set in the middle of the vast Mojave Desert, Las Vegas was created entirely to entertain, and has been described as the world’s largest theme park. The most populous city in the state of Nevada, this psychedelic city of sin is home to over a million people, and welcomes 35 million more each year to its lavish hotels and casinos. Las Vegas, the largest US city founded in the 20th century, is a thriving metropolis that was a mere backwater with less than 1,000 inhabitants just 70 years ago, whose only guests were railway passengers stopping off to stretch their legs on the long journey between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City.

Old plains

Las Vegas has always to catered to travellers, even from its earliest beginnings. A nomadic tribe of Indians, the Paiutes, settled in the area around the turn of the last millennium, with European traders and explorers travelling through and making contact with them. In 1851, the Mormons, in their endeavor to create the State of Deseret, stretching from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, made Las Vegas an important stopover, and sent missionaries to colonise the region and convert the Paiute. Eventually, the Mormon settlement disbanded and most of them returned to Utah.

Early settlers

A mining boom at nearby Mount Potosi fostered a new influx of travellers, mainly miners who used Las Vegas as a centre for food and supplies. There was no permanent settlement here until 1865, when a group of prospectors acquired the rights to the Old Mormon Fort. Prosperous businesses were built at the fort through the rebuilding of many of the structures, offering food and shelter to the travellers on the Salt Lake to Los Angeles wagon road as well as offering provisions to the nearby miners.

Growth with the railroads

With the establishment of the railroad from Utah to California, Las Vegas became a major stop for railroad travellers. Soon hotels, homes and businesses sprouted up all along the main downtown area of Fremont Street. Las Vegas essentially thrived for the next 20 years because of the railroad, playing host to travellers by providing entertainment and liquor. The city itself was founded in 1905 as a stopover on the Union Pacific railway between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City, but remained a remote backwater until the 1930s.

The 1930s

During the prohibition period, the city founders realised that the improved roads from Los Angeles to Las Vegas would promote tourism and they began to build ranches to appeal to potential visitors. In 1931, gambling was made legal and Las Vegas quickly began to assume its present character. At first, it drew droves of workers from the nearby Boulder Dam (later to be renamed Hoover Dam) and Boulder City. Soon, it became a gambling and vacation mecca for the entire country.

WWII to the 1960s

WWII increased the Las Vegas economy even more. In 1940, an air base was established in the northeast part of town, with the Basic Magnesium plant built for the manufacture of bullets and bomb casings. In the early 1950s, atomic bomb testing took place at the nuclear test site, just 70 miles northwest of the city. By the 1960s, Las Vegas began cleaning up its act. Gambling remained its principal draw, but the casinos began to fall under the control of large corporations, with the city increasingly repackaged as a family destination.

Vegas in the 1980s and 1990s

When Atlantic City emerged as a gambling destination in the early 1980s, Las Vegas managed to come up with a new twist. With the proliferation of gambling in many of the 50 states, Las Vegas only seemed to become more popular. The 1990s saw a trend towards building enormous hotel complexes that competed with one another for the title of largest hotel in the world. The competition was won by the city-like MGM Grand, whose capacity of over 5,000 rooms has yet to be bettered.

Las Vegas today

Entertainment dominates Las Vegas today; it’s the backbone of the city’s economy, creating vibrant hotel, retail and hospitality industries. Other industries such as construction, to a large degree owe their existence to the fact that hotels need to be built or expanded. According to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, Las Vegas is now the fastest growing city in North America, with an estimated two acres of land being developed every 24 hours, and seeing approximately 50,000 people annually choosing to make the city and suburbs their home.

It’s Las Vegas’ sheer exuberance in attracting visitors that has created something along the lines of a city-sized theme park. Its residents lead normal lives in normal suburbs, but to visitors, it is an endless playground of neon lights, hotel lounges, live entertainment and casinos.