Las Vegas Strip: interesting facts from the history of the brightest US street

The words "Las Vegas Strip" evoke many bright images: neon lights, skyscrapers, huge hotels and casinos.

However, many people do not know how bright and long the history of this part of the city of sins was, the newspaper writes. Only in Your State.

The first hotel and casino on the Strip was El Rancho Vegas. At this hotel, which opened 3 on April 1941, there were 63 numbers.

Photo: Las Vegas History / Facebook

The Last Frontier Hotel was the second hotel on the Las Vegas Strip, opening on October 30, 1942, with 105 rooms. The photo shows a gas station near the Last Frontier Hotel in the 1940s.

The most famous of the Strip's early hotels is Flamingo, which opened 26 December 1946 of the year.

Originally named the Pink Flamingo Hotel & Casino, the $6 million, 105-room hotel was the brainchild of mobster Bugsy Siegel; however, two weeks after the grand opening, Pink Flamingo closed. It was reopened on March 1, 1947 with a new name - Fabulous Flamingo.

Today Flamingo Las Vegas is owned by Harrah's Entertainment.

This historic hotel has 3 626 hotel rooms and a casino 77 000 square. ft (7 154 sq. m.). There you can now see the living flamingos, which are definitely worth seeing when visiting Las Vegas. If this is not enough, then, according to rumors, the ghost of Bugsey still wanders within the walls of the hotel.

The opening of the Thunderbird and Desert Inn hotels was followed by the opening of the first major casino on the Strip, the Silver Slipper, which was built in September 1950 on the site of the former Last Frontier Hotel.

Silver Slipper was originally called the Golden Slipper Saloon and Gambling Hall (because at that time there was another Silver Slipper in the city). After the original Silver Slipper was purchased and closed, the hotel changed its name. In 1968, Howard Hughes bought the Silver Slipper because he was afraid that they would be spying on his Desert Inn penthouse out of a silver shoe spinning over the hotel. After repeated attempts to remove the shoe, he simply bought the hotel and sealed the casino symbol with concrete. The casino was demolished on November 29 1988.

1950 was a period of active development of the Strip.

After building the Desert Inn (where Wynn is standing today) and Silver Slipper, Sahara (now SLS) appeared on the Strip, and Sands (the hotel was later refined and renamed Venetian), as well as Riviera (closed in 2015), Dunes (exploded and replaced by Bellagio), Hacienda (blown up and replaced by Mandalay Bay), Tropicana and Stardust (blown up in 2006 year after continuous operation for 48 years).

The first motel on the Strip (and the largest motel in the world) was Westward Ho. The interior of Westward Ho was used for the filming of the movie “Leaving Las Vegas,” the motel was closed on November 17 2005.

On the Strip, construction never stops, new hotels and attractions appear there weekly.

The Strip's newest hotels include the Linq (2014), Delano (2014), SLS (2014), Cromwell (2014), Nobu (2013), Cosmopolitan (2010), Aria (2009), and Encore (2008). In addition, many old hotels have undergone renovations, for example, the Tropicana was updated in 2011 at a cost of $180 million.

In addition to Tropicana and Flamingo, other older hotels that still operate are Caesars Palace, built on 6 in August 1966. and Circus Circus, built in 1972 year, which was also recently renovated.

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