Lost Vegas: Lucky Strike Prospector Statue
When the Lucky Strike Club Casino opened at 117 Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas in 1954, two 12-foot-tall prospectors stood guard on the rooftop sign. Seventy years later, the statues still exist. They've survived three casino closings, a car accident, decades of desert sun and wind and a fire.
But they don't live much longer.
Golden Boy Award
The Prospector was designed by renowned wax artist Katherine Stubergh. Known as "America's Madame Tussauds," she can be seen in the classic films Gone with the Wind (1939) and House of Wax (1953).
The sculptures were made from fiberglass by YESCO Signs at their Salt Lake City factory and mounted on Lucky Strike signs using their own wire. When the sign lit up at night, prospectors would swing pans filled with burning "gold" from side to side.
In 1963, the property was turned into the Lucky Casino and the prospectors were put into storage. Five years later, the neighboring Golden Nugget purchased the property and demolished it as part of a neighborhood expansion.
But the statue is safe. Since 1964, they have been used as a photo location in front of the Fort Lucinda Casino. This is part of the Ghost Town theme park and was created as an extension of the Gold Strike Hotel and Casino (now the Hoover Dam Inn). The town's distinctive architecture was relocated from the old West Village at the New Frontier Casino.
The theme park never caught on and Fort Lucinda Casino was renamed Gold Strike in 1968. But it was a good day for the prospectors sitting back-to-back under the new sign marquee.
This will be their happy home for the next 30 years.
After Gold Strike was destroyed by fire in 1998, its owners decided to relocate the miners to their "other" Gold Strike casino, located 30 miles south of the Las Vegas Strip in Jean City, Nevada.
GOLD POWDER
This is where the statue stands today. They were victims of vandalism and extreme sunlight, and one of their feet appeared to have been run over by a vehicle. But they're still there.
Until now, they were guarding a sad, abandoned resort, awaiting the arrival of the destroying ball.
Gold Strike was acquired in 1995 by what would become MGM Resorts. In 2015, it was sold again to the Herbst family, who renamed it Terrible's, the family's local grocery store and gas station with the same strange name.
Herbst closed the previous Gold Strike during the pandemic and never reopened — although unfortunately video signs still show ads for long-expired specials.
One of the latest to visit gold diggers is YouTube channel Wonderhussy Adventures, which specializes in searching in barren desert areas that were once much more picturesque. (Watch video here.)
In 2022, the former Gold Strike sold for $44.7 million to Tolles Development, a Reno-based real estate company that plans to build a 2.84 million-square-foot industrial center on the site and is currently seeking leasing, according to its website .
Toles did not respond to an email or voicemail about the statue plans.
But their prospects don't look promising.
"Lost Vegas" is an occasional series looking back at the little-known history of Las Vegas.Click here to read other entries in this series. Do you think you know a Vegas story that's been lost to history? Email [email protected].
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Source: www.casino.org
