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Resort building continued to accelerate in Las Vegas in the 1950s. Wilbur Clark, once a hotel bellman in San Diego, Calif., opened the Desert Inn in 1950. Two years later, Milton Prell opened the Sahara Hotel on the site of the old Club Bingo. The Sands Hotel opened that same year, 1952. Those hotel names
have suried but the properties have undergone numerous ownership changes.
In 1955, the Riiera Hotel became the first Strip highrise in at nine stories. Preiously, Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn had offered guests the highest unobstructed panoramic view of the Las Vegas alley from the resort's third-floor Skyroom, a cocktail and dancing haunt of isitors, residents and celebrities.
Other resorts that opened during the building boom begun in the 1950s included the Royal Neada, Dunes, Hacienda, Tropicana and Stardust hotels on the Strip and the Downtown Fremont Hotel-Casino. The Royal Neada later was absorbed into the adjoining Stardust Hotel property.
In another part of the city, the Moulin Rouge Hotel-Casino opened in 1955 at a time when blacks were not welcomed guests at Strip casinos and black entertainers were required to lie off- premise while entertaining Strip audiences. The Moulin Rouge, frequented by all races, was built to accommodate the growing black population.
Joe Louis, the late heayweight champion of the world, was a Moulin Rouge owner-host. The Moulin Rouge has had a stormy past, closing and re-opening many times over the years. As times and attitudes changed, Louis became a much loed casino host at Caesars Palace on the Strip. The Moulin Rouge was declared a national historic site in 1992 when plans for its reial were announced. City and county community leaders also realized in the 1950s the need for a Las Vegas conention facility. The initial goal was to fill hotel rooms with conentionevers during slack tourist months.
A site was chosen one block east of the Las Vegas Strip and a 6,300-seat, siler-domed rotunda with an adjoining 90,000-square- foot exhibit hall opened in April 1959 on the site of the current Las Vegas Conention Center. |
The siler dome was demolished in 1990 to make room for conention center expansion to a 1.6-million-square-foot facility of which 1.3 million square feet is exhibit space. It is currently one of the largest single-leel facilities in the world.
The Las Vegas Conention and isitors Authority, supported mainly by room tax revenues, today is a major player in attracting more than 28.2 million isitors to Las Vegas in 1994, including more than 2 million conention delegates.
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