Las Vegas Myths Busted: The Flamingo Was the First Strip Casino
Editor's Note: Vegas Mythbusters releases new entries every Monday, with a bonus Friday flashback edition. Today’s entry in our ongoing series originally appeared on March 31, 2023.
We've busted the myth perpetuated by the scene in the 1991 film Bugsy in which Warren Beatty walks into a barren desert and sees a vision. No, gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel didn't create the Las Vegas Strip.
He didn't even create the Flamingo Hotel, which brings us to the mythology before our eyes. Few non-historians know the "real" story of the first casinos taking over the Las Vegas Strip. And it's much better than the one in "Bugsy."
As University of Nevada, Las Vegas history professor Michael Green puts it, the Las Vegas Strip is "a founding mother, not a founding father."
There are four casinos and two full resorts in front of the Flamingo Hotel on Highway 91, the main thoroughfare from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles in 1946. The first store was opened exactly 15 years ago by Alice Morris, nicknamed "Mama" with astonishing prescience.
The real pecking order
"Horse" Morris opened the Red Rooster Club on November 26, 1930 on a 30-acre property, not to be confused with the Las Vegas Swingers Club that had been operating under that name since the 1980s , the club is now home to the North Gate of the Mirage Hotel. Initially, it was a nightclub with dance marathons, live girl bands and restaurants. A chicken dinner will cost you $1.
There was no gambling then, at least not in a legal form. As strange as it sounds, this activity has been banned in Las Vegas since September 30, 1910.
“Nevada banned most forms of gambling as part of the Progressive Era moral reforms of the early 20th century,” Green explained. “It was not legalized again until Governor Fred Balzar signed Assembly Bill 98 on March 19, 1931.”
Eager to capitalize on the new revenue stream but with no gambling experience, Morris did what many other Las Vegas club owners did at the time: She sought the advice of gambling experts. So who were the gambling masters at that time?
MOB RULES
Morris “Goldie” Goldsworth came to Las Vegas with the promise of winnings from illegal gambling in an untapped market. On October 16, 1958, he was an aspiring Los Angeles gambling player when he was found beaten to death with a hammer in the back seat of his car. The Los Angeles medical examiner called the gunshot wound to his head "superficial." ” He was 52 years old.
While he was still breathing, Goldie agreed to found and run Morris' gambling company in exchange for an undocumented share of the profits. He applied for a modest license - a blackjack table and three slot machines - and on April 1, 1931, the Red Rooster became the first Clark County Highway 91 franchise to receive a gambling license under the new law. place.
The Red Rooster was also the first casino on the Las Vegas Strip to "lose" its gambling license because, surprisingly, serving alcohol was also illegal at the time. This remained the case across the United States until Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933.
The Red Rooster has served alcohol since its opening. Prohibition officials even came to warn Morris in February 1931. She obeyed for now. But on May 18, 1931, the Red Rooster once again received a visit from the government, but this visit was not so friendly. They arrested Morris and her husband, and the pair were found guilty, sentenced to probation and fined $500.
Goldie was not arrested in the raid. But when he applied to renew the Red Rooster gambling license on July 7, 1931, he was refused due to previous drunkenness violations.
Other casinos in front of Flamingo Avenue
Like the Red Rooster, the Pair O' Dice opened in 1930 as a nightclub and restaurant that served alcohol under the tables. However, unlike the Red Rooster, the owners Frank and Angelina Deterra were never arrested. They also applied for a gambling license but did not receive it until May 1931, a month after the Red Rooster issued the license.
The Las Vegas Ranch opened in April 1941. It is the largest casino on Highway 91, with 70 slot machines and 4 table games. It also features a swimming pool and a 63-room hotel, so it can rightly be called the first "resort" on the Las Vegas Strip. However, as far as casinos go, it ranks third.
In 1941, the Pair O' Dice was sold and merged into the Last Frontier Hotel. It opened in 1942, becoming the fourth official casino and second resort on the Las Vegas Strip. The Flamingo Hotel opened on December 26, 1946, as the fifth casino and third resort on the future Las Vegas Strip.
Red rooster keeps crow
The Red Rooster's schedule continues after it loses its casino license. In 1933, Clark County granted Morris a dance hall license, breathing new life into Morris' business. Later that year, after Prohibition was repealed, the county issued beer-only licenses. Although the Red Rooster Museum suffered a fire in July 1933, Morris rebuilt it and reopened it on December 30 of that year. It remained popular throughout World War II. In 1947, Morris sold the Red Rooster to former vaudeville star Grace Hayes. By then, a motel had been added to the property called Sans Souci (French for "carefree"). It was demolished in 1962 to make way for The Castaways.
Like many former vaudeville artists, Hayes failed to become a star on the big screen. The singer-actress only had two leading roles: She played versions of herself in 1936's "Maid for a Day" and 1941's "Zis Boom Bah." So Hayes implemented her Plan B. In 1938, she took advantage of her declining popularity and opened Grace Hayes Lodge in Sherman Oaks, California.
After deciding to move the club to Las Vegas, she paid Morris $15,000 for the Red Rooster and the 30 acres it sat on, renamed the club after her and built the A ranch house serves as a residence.
Under Hayes, the club maintained its success and attracted many of the city's first movers and shakers. In a 1981 interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Hayes estimated that Howard Hughes was on site at least three times a week.
"I don't know what I offered him," Hayes told the newspaper. "I know I poured him a drink. I mixed a drink. He didn't care what it was. He never drank it and he never paid me for a drink in his life."
Hayes was tired of running the club and renting it out to other people. Willie Martello, best known for running a gambling and prostitution den in Trailhead, Nevada, took over the business in 1949 and renamed it the Willie Martello Red Rooster. Willie Martello's Red Rooster). This is because regulars never call the club by its former name.
After Martello, the club operated under changing owners and new names. These include the Hi-Ho Club, The Patio, The Rendezvous, and finally the Grace Hayes Lodge. The club closed in 1957 and was demolished in 1959 by Standard Oil (renamed Mobil Oil Company in 1966). Hayes has leased land to the company to open the gas station.
Hayes stays
Hayes continues to live in the ranch house on her property. It eventually went down in history as the last remaining private residence on the Las Vegas Strip. She was accompanied to Vegas by her son and daughter-in-law, entertainers Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healy, who are active in the community.
In 1987, Steve Wynn Hayes paid $2 million for his home and the mobile station where the Red Rooster once stood. As part of the agreement, she spent her final days in a luxury suite at the Wynn Nugget Resort downtown. Health problems forced Hayes into a Las Vegas convalescent center, where he died in 1989 at the age of 93. That same year, Wynn opened the Mirage Hotel on the site of her former home.
Almost exactly where the Red Rooster once stood, Wynn built the Mirage's most famous public attraction. Hard Rock International, which bought the Mirage last year for $1.1 billion, plans to dismantle his fake volcano sometime in 2024. The resort's new owners plan to build a 36-story, guitar-shaped hotel tower on the site.
Ever since news broke that the volcano would be demolished, baby boomers and Gen-Xers have taken to social media to complain that Las Vegas doesn't respect its history. Interestingly, they consider this volcano to be the most historic thing that ever existed in this place.
When you first see this guitar tower rising from the ground, you know it's rising from the ashes of Las Vegas history.
“Remember those who came before us,” Green said, “in this case, Grace Hayes and her predecessor, Alice Morris, the founder of the Las Vegas Strip.”
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Source: www.casino.org
