The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States.
Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-largest in the Southwestern United States. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city, known primarily for its gambling, shopping, fine dining, entertainment, and nightlife, with most venues centered on downtown Las Vegas and more to the Las Vegas Strip just outside city limits. The Las Vegas Valley as a whole serves as the leading financial, commercial, and cultural center in Nevada. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city had 641,903 residents in 2020, with a metropolitan population of 2,227,053, making it the 24th-most populous city in the United States.
MGM Resorts International is an American multinational hospitality, sports and entertainment company. It operates resorts in Las Vegas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, Macau, Shanghai, Chengdu, Hangzhou and Sanya, including the Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand and Park MGM.
Mirage Resorts was an American company that owned and operated hotel-casinos. It was acquired by MGM Grand, Inc. in 2000, forming MGM Mirage.
The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about 4.2 mi (6.8 km) long, and is immediately south of the Las Vegas city limits in the unincorporated towns of Paradise and Winchester, but is often referred to simply as "Las Vegas".
The Boardwalk Hotel and Casino was a Coney Island-style hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. The property began in 1966, as a Holiday Inn. Norbert Jansen added a gift shop to the hotel in 1972, and later opened the Slot Joynt casino. In 1985, Jansen renamed the Holiday Inn as the Viscount Hotel, part of a U.S. chain. Four years later, he merged Slot Joynt with the Viscount and renamed them as the Boardwalk. It rejoined the Holiday Inn chain in 1994, through a franchise deal which eventually ended in 2002.
The Las Vegas Monorail is a 3.9-mile (6.3 km) automated monorail mass transit system located adjacent to the Las Vegas Strip in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It connects several large casinos in the unincorporated communities of Paradise and Winchester just south of Las Vegas city limits. Built at a cost of $650 million, it was privately owned and operated by the Las Vegas Monorail Company until their 2020 bankruptcy. It was then sold to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, a local government agency. In 2022, total annual ridership was roughly 4.3 million, down from a pre-Great Recession peak of 7.9 million in 2007. The monorail is a registered not-for-profit corporation, allowed under Nevada law since the monorail provides a public service. The State of Nevada assisted in bond financing, but no public money was used in construction.
Circus Circus Reno is a hotel and casino located in Downtown Reno, Nevada. It anchors a network of connected hotel-casinos in the downtown Reno core that includes Silver Legacy Reno and Eldorado Reno and are owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment. It includes a 1,620 room hotel and a 66,515 sq ft (6,179.4 m2) casino which features free circus acts on a regular basis throughout the day over the midway which also offers 33 carnival games.
El Rancho Vegas was a hotel and casino at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. It opened in 1941, as the first resort on the Strip, known then as part of Highway 91. It was located at what is now the southwest corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Sahara Avenue. The El Rancho Vegas was conceived by Thomas Hull, who owned several hotels in California and wanted to expand his operations to Las Vegas. He decided to build his new resort along Highway 91, on desert land located just outside of city limits. Hull intended to target motorists traveling from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, although his remote location was met with skepticism.
Sahara Las Vegas is a hotel and casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. It is owned and operated by the Meruelo Group. The hotel has 1,616 rooms, and the casino contains 50,662 square feet (4,706.7 m2). The Sahara anchors the northern end of the Las Vegas Strip, at the corner of Sahara Avenue. It is the site of the northernmost station of the Las Vegas Monorail.
The settlement of Las Vegas, Nevada was founded in 1905 before the opening of a railroad that linked Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. The stopover attracted some farmers to the area, and fresh water was piped in to the settlement. In 1911, the town was incorporated as part of the newly founded Clark County. Urbanization took off in 1931 when work started on the Boulder Dam, bringing a huge influx of young male workers, for whom theaters and casinos were built, largely by the Mafia. Electricity from the dam also enabled the building of many new hotels along the Strip. The arrival of Howard Hughes in 1966 did much to offset mob influence and helped turn Las Vegas into more of a family tourist center, now classified as a Mega resort.
Downtown Las Vegas is the central business district and historic center of Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It is the original townsite, and the Downtown gaming area was the primary gambling district of Las Vegas prior to the Strip. As the urban core of the Las Vegas Valley, it features a variety of hotel and business highrises, cultural centers, historical buildings and government institutions, as well as residential and retail developments. Downtown is located in the center of the Las Vegas Valley and just north of the Las Vegas Strip, centered on Fremont Street, the Fremont Street Experience and Fremont East. The city defines the area as bounded by I-15 on the west, Washington Avenue on the north, Maryland Parkway on the east and Sahara Avenue on the south.
Aria Campus, commonly known by its former name CityCenter, is a mixed-use, urban complex on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is located on 67 acres (27 ha) and contains a total of 18-million sq ft (1,700,000 m2). The complex includes Aria Resort and Casino, the Vdara condo-hotel, the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas hotel and condominiums, the Veer Towers condominiums, and a mall known as The Shops at Crystals. Another hotel and condo project, The Harmon, never opened due to construction defects; the site was redeveloped as another shopping mall, known as 63.
A resort hotel is a hotel which often contains full-sized luxury facilities with full-service accommodations and amenities. These hotels may attract both business conferences and vacationing tourists and offer more than a convenient place to stay. These hotels may be referred to as major conference center hotels, flagship hotels, destination hotels, and destination resorts. The market for conference and resort hotels is a subject for market analysis.
Martin Stern Jr. was an American architect who was most widely known for his large scale designs and structures in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is credited with originating the concept of the structurally integrated casino resort complex in Las Vegas.
Silver Legacy Resort & Casino is a hotel and casino located in Downtown Reno, Nevada. It anchors a network of connected hotel-casinos in the downtown Reno core that included Circus Circus Reno and Eldorado Reno and are owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment. It has over 1,700 hotel rooms and suites and is the tallest building in Reno.
Joel Bergman was an American architect who has designed several landmark casinos.
Aria Resort and Casino is a luxury resort and casino, and the primary property at the CityCenter complex, located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. It is owned by The Blackstone Group and operated by MGM Resorts International.
The LV Strip is one of the designated Nevada Gaming Control Boards reporting areas. It consists of the Las Vegas Strip casinos and many of the surrounding casinos. The Strip earns roughly 50% of the gaming revenue from all sources for the state of Nevada.
The 1950s was a time of considerable change for Las Vegas. By the 1950s, there were 44,600 living in the Las Vegas Valley. Over 8 million people were visiting Las Vegas annually in 1954, pumping $200 million into casinos, which consolidated its image as "wild, full of late-night, exotic entertainment". The population grew dramatically from 8,422 during World War II to over 45,000. From 1952 to 1957, through money and institutional lending provided by the Teamsters Union and some Mormon bankers, they built the Sahara, the Sands, the New Frontier, the Royal Nevada, the Showboat, the Riviera, the Fremont, Binion's Horseshoe, and finally the Tropicana. Gambling was no longer the only attraction by the 1950s; the biggest stars of films and music like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Andy Williams, Liberace, Bing Crosby, Carol Channing, and others performed in intimate settings and brought a whole new brigade of Hollywood film stars and others in the entertainment business to the city. In 1957, the first topless show "Minsky's Follies" was started here.
-|chapter-url=https://openlibrary.org/books/ia:nevadahandbookmo00deke/Nevada_handbook_(Moon_Handbooks_Nevada) |title = Nevada Handbook |date = 1989 |publisher = Moon Publications |location=California |chapter=Las Vegas |author=Deke Castleman |ref=none }} (fulltext via OpenLibrary)