Standing out in front of the exquisite and enormous Venetian Hotel, an edifice every inch of which was carved with great care at significant expense, and looking left and right down glittering Las Vegas Boulevard past the rich, cavernous gambling dens with names like Caesar’s, Paris, Treasure Island, Bellagio, it is nigh on impossible to conceive that this spectacular oasis in the Nevada desert was a mere unpeopled grassland meadow less than 200 years ago. No Dancing Waters, no regularly erupting volcanic fountains, no rooftop roller-coasters, no nuthin’. The land was originally home to the Navajo and other nomadic American Indian tribes. Ironically, the Indians hadn’t heard of casinos yet.
Then, in 1829, along came a Mexican trader named Antonio Armijo and a caravan of 60 men looking to establish a trade route to Los Angeles. By following the routes through a tributary of the Colorado River earlier established by Jedediah Smith and Zebulon Pike, they came upon the Las Vegas Valley, described by Smith as the best point at which to resupply before proceeding to California. A scout in the party named Raphael Rivera gave the place the name “Las Vegas,” which is Spanish for “The Meadows.”
In 1844, U.S. President John Tyler sent John C. Fremont to the valley while it was still a part of Mexico. Fremont led a group of scientists, scouts and spies for the United States Army Corps of Engineers, who were preparing for a possible war with Mexico. Fremont’s men made camp at Las Vegas Springs and established a clandestine fort there; after the territory was annexed following the war, the fort was used by travelers, mountain men, hunters and traders seeking shelter, though it was never permanently inhabited. Fremont was rewarded for his troubles by having Las Vegas’ major thoroughfare named in his honor. Fremont Street was the site of most of the city’s original casinos, featured in many old Sin City movies and is still the focal point of “old Las Vegas,” a less polished part of town unknown to most of the tourists who flow up and down the far more glamorous Vegas “Strip.”
In 1855, Mormon missionaries arrived from Salt Lake City, constructing a 150-square foot adobe fort. Two years later they were gone, unable to tolerate the summer heat and difficult growing conditions. For the next few years, the area remained unoccupied by Americans. In 1865, Octavius Gass, with a commission from the U.S. government, reoccupied the fort, irrigating the old fields and making wine at his ranch. Soon, Las Vegas became known as the best stop on the Old Spanish Trail. In 1902, the San Pedro, Las Vegas and Salt Lake Railroad included the area in their route across southern Nevada. In 1905, the city of Las Vegas was established, mostly populated by a large-scale migration of Mormons who decided to give the place another shot. Through extensive well-building and irrigation, agriculture became the primary industry for the next 20 years. By the early twentieth century, water from the wells was piped into the town, providing a reliable source of fresh water and means for additional growth. Its increased availability allowed Las Vegas to become an important water stop for wagon trains and railroads. Interestingly, at that time gambling was so abhored by the public that a strict anti-gambling law was enacted by the state of Nevada at midnight, October 1, 1910. If they only knew.
Entrance to the Bellagio
Home of the Dancing Waters, Bellagio, looking toward Caesar’s Palace
Two of the old-timers on the strip.
Indoor sky ceilings at Caesar’s shops.
Caesar’s entrance
Glass sculpture ceiling in Bellagio lobby.
Birth Of The Casinos
Las Vegas continued to grow quickly until 1917. That year, a combination of economic influences and the redirection of resources by the federal government in support of World War I forced the important Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad to declare bankruptcy. Though the remains of the company were sold to Union Pacific, a nationwide railroad strike in 1922 left Las Vegas in a desperate state. The blight continued for eight long years with little sign of renaissance. Then on July 3, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed the appropriation bill for the Boulder Dam, later renamed the Hoover Dam during the Truman administration. Work started on the dam in 1931 and Las Vegas, only 42 miles away, saw its population skyrocket from 5000 to 25,000 in short order, with most of the newcomers looking for work at the damsite. The demographic of the work force—almost exclusively males from across the country—created a market for large-scale entertainment. A combination of local Las Vegas business owners, Mormon financiers and Mafia crime lords helped develop casinos and showgirl theaters to entertain the new work force. Realizing that gambling would be profitable for local businesses, the Nevada state legislature legalized it at the local level in 1931. As mentioned earlier, the original casinos appeared on Fremont street, which became the first paved thoroughfare in Las Vegas and received the city’s first traffic light. Happy Days were here again!
In the early casino days, Las Vegas was wild and wooly. There was no state speed limit for automobiles, no waiting period for marriages, facile quickie divorces abounded and gambling was totally unregulated. The best hotels charged $7.50 a day and motels got a hefty $3.00. Then, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky built one of the first Vegas Strip hotels, the Flamingo, which opened on New Year’s Eve, 1946. The Mob was officially Open For Business. By the early 1950s, Las Vegas had become a rocking tourist destination. Frank Sinatra and “The Rat Pack” moved in. It was the era of Elvis and Liberace. Nothing was off-limits. Everybody wanted to see this incredible new playground and the town flourished. New hotels sprung up almost overnight. The Las Vegas Convention Center, with 1.5 million square feet of exhibit space, opened in 1959. Caesar’s Palace began its magical run in 1966, perhaps the only mega-hotel built in that era to keep pace with the quality offered by the ever-newer resorts.
The Vegas boom has continued to this day. In 2013, area gaming revenue grew to $6.50 billion, and that’s with competition from New Jersey and several other new players. When Atlantic City initiated gambling in 1976 on the populous East Coast, many thought Las Vegas’ halcyon days were over. Incredibly, just the opposite occurred. Many of the New Jersey casinos have crashed and burned, while Sin City is stronger than ever.
Venetian tower.
Mystery woman unpacks in the gloaming.
Venetian bathroom (of special interest to Marty Jourard).
We’re Off To The Coxville Zoo
Say what you will about the Orlando International Airport, the parking is close to the terminals, the walk to security is brief, the lines are tolerable and those little trains are always at the ready to zip you to the appropriate gate area. If everything’s up to date in Kansas City, the same is true for the Disney World port of entry. And just in case you still have reservations about your reservations, the squalling moppet armies of Summer diminish significantly in September. Sad to report, everything is not up to date in Las Vegas.
McCarran International Airport is in need of a fixup. Hikers can walk the length of the Appalachian Trail faster than travelers can get from plane to street at McCarran. In much of the airport, the corridors are narrow and dingy and nervous men wait in long lines for the single restroom toilet. On our return trip, we exulted in discovering we were leaving from Gate 1 rather than Gate 35 somewhere in the hinterlands only to find the latter gate came up first and the former was miles in the distance. And there was not a hint of those nice moving sidewalks.
Remember the good old days when they actually kept the rental cars in the airport? Unless you’re in Smallville, that’s not happening anymore. Now, they have “Rental Car Centers.” The one in Las Vegas is almost as far from the airport as the Earth is from Jupiter. And the buses which take you there are crammed to the gills with tourists the size of Jabba The Hutt carrying bags big enough to put the fully-inflated Hindenburg inside. They’re taking the Fun out of Fun City.
Eventually, however, you arrive at the palacial oasis that is your hotel and all is mitigated. On this occasion, we chose the Venetian, and a wise choice it was. Do you remember last July when we ended up in a broom closet at a place called The Sanctuary in Manhattan? Well, this room was large enough to contain four broom closets with space left over for a quoits court. And, by the way, for the same price as the Sanctuary enclosure. Our usual Las Vegas digs, Caesar’s Palace, also offered similar amenities but the Venetian, partly by virtue of being much newer, is far more elegant, with the Venice theme carried throughout the resort, up to and including canals and gondoliers. Our pal, Irana, thought Siobhan and I should opt for a gondola wedding but even we have our limitations.
Dancing Waters of the Bellagio.
Mini Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel.
Fountain at the Venetian.
Mon Ami café at the Paris.
Stratosphere Tower, Las Vegas. Not to be confused with Space Needle, Seattle, which is organic.
The Reason For The Season
We were traveling to Las Vegas, of course, to advance the cause of Siobhan’s business, Pathogenes, Inc., which does blood-testing on horses for an unhappy disease called EPM (Equine Protozoal Myeloencephalitis) and, if a horse has it, provides treatment. Vegas was the site for this year’s annual conference of the American Association of Equine Practitioners, an enormous gathering which took place at the Mandalay Bay hotel’s vast conference center. The conference gave Siobhan the opportunity to converse in person with many of her clients west of the Mississippi and perhaps rustle up a few new ones. My Nevada pastime would be trudging through the streets of town taking pictures, getting ridiculously sunburned, and—oh, yeah—finding a wedding chapel for the Summer Event. I finally settled on a place called Chapel of the Flowers in the old section of town. In the process, the wedding planners advised me the entire ceremony took all of twelve minutes. Blink at your own risk.
Now, while all this was going on, there were two other complementary events taking place. The first was the 2015 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo at the Thomas & Mack Center, an annual monster event which extends from December 3rd to the 12th of the month and brings in shit-kickers from everywhere. I mean, the town was full of ‘em, amblin’ down the streets, yee-hawin’ at the craps tables, handin’ out dollar tips like they were water. Which, in Las Vegas, they are. Meanwhile, back at the Mandalay, the Cowboy Market was in season, filling up an amphitheater with cowboy shirts, boots, pick-up trucks, stock trailers and everything else necessary to Cowboy Up. This lone building carried more varieties of cowboy hats than the entire city of Waco. It was an extravaganza. I mean, where else can you go to get Rogere’s Bovine Colostrum? They don’t carry that at the Walmart.
On our final night in town, Siobhan and I went over to Caesar’s to catch a show called Absinthe, which took place in a large tent just in back of the Serendipity restaurant. Now, if you haven’t been to Vegas lately, you might want to know there are more acrobats living and working there than held forth in all the incarnations of the Ringling Brothers Circus since the beginning of Time. I blame it on the Cirque du Soleil, an evil entertainment troupe with delusions of taking over the world. This outfit has eight or nine shows playing all over town and there’s no sign of a letup.
Anyway, Absinthe offers more of the same, with a couple of notable exceptions. First, the show is offered in a theater-in-the-round type of venue with only a few hundred seats, so the audience is very close to the entertainers. Second, the whole shebang is hosted by a slimy weasel called The Gazillionaire, whose language makes Lenny Bruce sound like Mary Poppins. The gymnastics, dancing and wire-walkers are spectacular but the show would be much better if they let the audience throw rotten fruit at The Gazillionaire. I’d even get season’s tickets.
Official Nuptial Bulletin
Where: Chapel of the Flowers, 1717 Las Vegas Boulevard South
When: June 25, 2016, 1 p.m.
Flying Pie reporters and photographers will be there to bring you all the highlights, assuming there are any. The venue will provide a live feed of the ceremony for all the unfortunates who cannot be present for this solemn occasion.
That’s all, folks….
