Ahem, Bobby's Room? Doyle Brunson? The Big Game? Etc, etc?

Que?

Small correction. The Red Rooster opend in 1931. Not 1935. It was also the first casino to receive a gaming licence (on the Strip, that is)

Did this and we didn't miss to much cool stuff in the past grounds. One thing stands out though:

On Easter Sunday the 11th of April, 2004, a power cut plunged the Bellagio into darkness. The power outage lasted 3 days and cost the MGM Mirage company an estimated $3 million dollars a day in lost revenue, as all guests had to be evacuated. It’s safe to assume someone lost his job here…

The next ground we cover hasn’t seen any action until the 27th of October 1993 when it current owner Treasure Island Hotel-Casino opens. Three years after The Mirage opened, the same owner (Steve Wynn) and designer (Joel Bergman) opened another themed mega-resort right next door.



In fact; originally another tower for The Mirage was planned for this ground but that idea got binned in favour of a brand new hotel-casino. Treasure Island is 32 stories tall with 2,884 rooms and cost $ 450 million. It’s obvious by the name that the resort has a Pirate theme. Each night there was live pirate ship battle right in front of the hotel in the waters of the Buccaneer Bay.



The sign at the entrance to the resort was that of the Skull & Crossbones.



This would be replaced by a boring neon sign in 2003.



The Pirate ship battle would also change a few years later to become The Sirens of TI. The Sirens of TI was closed on October 21, 2013. The closure was initially intended to be temporary, but in November, it was made permanent, to the dismay of the show's actors. The reason cited by Treasure Island was the construction of new retail space nearby.

Treasure Island was the first resort to have a permanent Cirque du Soleil show playing there. In fact, "Mystere" would also be the first Las Vegas show to have a theatre built just for it. The 1,600 seat "Mystere Theater" has been home to the show since its premier in December of 1993, where an international cast of 72 perform nightly.

After Benny's WSOP vision, Bobby Baldwin/Steve Wynn are credited for bringing modern poker to the strip. Obv. many of us 2+2ers would expect a side story on it but many books have been written.

The Mirage poker room is where Matt Damon was headed at the end of Rounders . . .

Yeah. And I think about 99.943% of this forum knows that **** already. What makes this topic interesting - I would think - is reading stuff you didn't know yet.

I don't see what Doyle Brunson or The Big Game should be doing in this topic. I actually thought he posted in the wrong topic...

Duh, it's an important part of the history of poker in Vegas, and of the Mirage in particular.

Also an important part of the history if TI is when notorious cheapskate Phil Ruffin bought it for a song. It was under his ownership that the outdoor show closed permanently.

So add. The etc, etc's and duh don't motivate to hard to keep this going.

If anybody is interested the Castaways ran the first big NFL handicapping contest from the mid-70s until they closed. Castaways also had a honey pot blackjack game with the best rules in town.

pig4bill,

You obviously missed the thread title. Las Vegas History, not Las Vegas Poker History. In terms of the history of Las Vegas, Doyle and Bobby's room are minor.

Checkko,

Thanks for the effort you are putting in here. I, for one, appreciate it.

Here's a fun fact about the Mirage.

At the time it was being developed there was already a motel in the area named Mirage. Steve Wynn paid the owner (from memory) $250,000 for sole rights to the name. Had to be the easiest big money ever made.

Imo, the Mirage was the true beginning of modern Vegas. The old Vegas had it's charms though. Back then (before 1989) the town was much more about the gambling. Now it seems more about the clubs, shopping and dining.

Next stop. The current Fashion Show Mall. Nothing spectacular to report here really. Until the first mall was built on this ground in 1982 the only construction on the site till then were billboards.


Source


Source Fashion Mall in 1982 (far left)

Seems there were plans for the Excalibur property in 1975:





Unrealized Dreams: Xanadu Las Vegas. This $150-million hotel-casino project was planned in 1975 near the south end of the strip. Xanadu’s owners and the city of Las Vegas clashed over who would pay for a sewer line, and construction never began. Excalibur was eventually built on this property in 1990.

Elements of the ambitious pyramid & atrium design turned up on several future projects in and out of Las Vegas including The Mirage (1989) and Luxor (1993).

Source: Vintagelasvegas

That thing looks awesome.

Looks like something out of logans run.

Where the Palms is today was supposed to be a horror/Gargoyle/gothic themed casino.

Anyone remember the African safari themed the Reserve? Its the Fiesta Henderson today.

Major thing...

Steve Wynn didn't have the financial capability to build the Mirage the way that it was meant to be. Mike Milken, who was at the height of his junk bond powers in the late 1980s supplied him with the money. No Milken no Mirage no Steve Wynn legend.

Mike Milken is the real hero of the modernization of Las Vegas. Kirkorian used junk bonds too.

Which is why they are still very tight

Design defect. The primary and backup power cables were routed through the same tunnel. The primary feeds burned up and took the backups with them.

With all due respect for Vintagelasvegas, the property is 4 miles south of the city of Las Vegas. Any arguments over the sewer would have been with Clark County. That's why we have unincorporated towns, to prevent LV from trying to annex the strip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise,_Nevada

Been going to Vegas for years. Only found out last year that the strip isn't really in the city of Las Vegas.

Don't forget about the Villa De Flores Apartments which are completely surrounded by the Mirage property,

if we're talking about concepts:

Titanic Las Vegas
Number of rooms: 1,200
Cost: $1.2 billion
Inspired by the fateful RMS Titanic, this resort would have taken the shape of a 400-foot-long ship. Bob Stupak, Las Vegas businessman and creator of The Stratosphere, presented the idea in 1999 — not long after the hit movie. It would have stood 400-plus feet high — twice the height of the RMS Titanic. The hotel was going to have giant icebergs that included a hotel and theater, an amusement park, a petting zoo and a nightclub (cleverly named) Club Icebreaker. Stupak originally wanted it across from SLS, but the City Council rejected the idea. He then tried to rezone it near Las Vegas and Charleston boulevards but due to residential concerns, that didn’t work out either.

Next ground is currently vacant ground just north of the Fashion Show Mall. This site is empty since 2007 when the last occupant The Frontier was put to rest. It’s kind of sad to see this site empty now since this is the place where the Las Vegas Strip was born. In 1930 The Pair O' Dice is the first property to open on the Los Angeles Highway (Highway 91) a.k.a The Strip.



While Pair O' Dice is the first ‘casino’ on the The Strip it’s not the first one the receive a gaming licence. That honour goes to The Red Rooster from the previous update which by the way opened in 1931, not 1935.

The Pair O' Dice was built by British theatre owner R.E. Griffith. The nightclub was only open at night, and in addition to bands and jazz performers the Pair O' Dice served Italian food. In 1936 it was renamed The Ambassador Night Club. In 1939 Guy McAfee buys it for $20,000 and calls it The 91 Club, named after Highway 91.

McAfee owned the Clover Club, which was a private, illicit casino on the Sunset Strip, Los Angeles. McAfee liked to tell others he foresaw a string of clubs and casinos someday opening alongside his place on the highway. As mentioned in the first post of this topic; most historians credit him as the first to nickname the area “The Strip” after the Sunset Strip.



In 1942 The 91 Club seizes to exits as it become part of a new Hotel / Casino. On the 30th of October 1942 The Last Frontier becomes the 2nd Hotel-Casino-Resort to open on Highway 91.



It had a Wild West theme, the lobby had a fireplace and logs for a ceiling. The casino featured buffalo heads, saddles and other western style objects. The Gay Nineties Bar was virtually all of the Arizona club's bar from Fremont street, which they had bought and transferred here.

In 1944 one of Las Vegas's most famous entertainers makes his debut at the Last Frontier; Liberace. Earlier this year while performing at the Mount Royal Hotel in Montreal, Liberace received a phone call from the entertainment director at the Last Frontier asking him if he would be interested in playing Las Vegas. After he replies Yes, he was asked how much he was currently earning. $750.00 a week he replied, a bit of a white lie because it was actually $350.00. But it worked, because he was offered that $750.00.





So on the 24th of November 1944 Liberace played his first gig at the Last Frontier hotel. Well the rest is history, the audience loved him and after this first show his contract was ripped up and a new one penned for $1,500 a week. A ten year contract soon followed, and in a short time he would become the highest paid entertainer in Las Vegas.

In 1950 the owners (R. E. Griffith and Bill Moore) then added The Last Frontier Village, which became part of the hotel's complex. The Last Frontier Village had a mix of museum pieces with working "authentic" western attractions and retail establishments. There was also three complete railroad outfits with engines and accessories. Throw in a Drug store, General store, Post office, School-house, Printing plant and a Jail, and you have quite an attraction.



For $1.50 you could enjoy a "Chuck Wagon supper" which was served from 10pm - 7am. While breakfast was served 24/7. They even provided an airport Limo service, although their Limo was a Stagecoach.

The Last Frontier also hosted the town's first wedding chapel, the Little Church of the West which was relocated to the Hacienda Hotel property in 1979, and in 1996 moved two tenths of a mile south to the east side of the Strip at Russell Road, where it still stands to this day. The Little Church is listed on the National Registry of Historical Places, the only place on the Strip with such an honour, it’s also the oldest existing structure on the Las Vegas Strip. The first celebrity wedding at the chapel was Betty Grable and band leader Harry James in 1943. Singer Judy Garland said “I do” to Mark Herron in 1965, and a year earlier in 1964, Elvis married Ann Margret, well, only in the movie Viva Las Vegas. A few celebrities that also got married here were, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Robert Goulet, Dudley Moore, Mickey Rooney, Bob Geldof, David Cassidy, and Angelina Jolie & Billy Bob Thornton and of course the 11 hour marriage of Britney Spears.



For two weeks in 1954, Ronald Reagan opened as a stand-up comic at the Ramona Room at the Last Frontier. He was paid $30,000 for the two weeks, which was as much as he made on his last film. This is a quote from someone who saw one of the shows. "He came on and he did a couple of comedy scenes with some girls. He came on like a clown, like a clown costume, chasing everybody around the stage and hitting them with a rolled up newspaper"



In 1955 The Last Frontier is remodelled and opens under a new management and a new name. The owner felt that the Last Frontier was outdated and that Las Vegas was not the last frontier anymore so he changed it to New Frontier.



On the 23rd of April 1956 another makes his Vegas debut at the New Frontier. Elvis was just 21 when booked for a two week stint at the New Frontier hotel. He played in the Venus Room and was billed as “The Atomic Powered Singer.” Vegas was still the home of Atomic bomb testing, and Colonel Parker his manager, thought it would be a catchy headline.



However, his Vegas debut was not to be his crowning glory. The problem was, although Elvis was popular with the younger generation – who couldn’t gamble - at this time, he was not exactly the typical Las Vegas entertainer and his shows were not well received.

A review in the Las Vegas Sun newspaper read: "For the teen-agers, the long, tall Memphis lad is a whiz; for the average Vegas spender or showgoer, a bore. His musical sound with a combo of three is uncouth, matching to a great extent the lyric content of his nonsensical songs." Elvis would not perform live in Las Vegas for another 13 long years.



The New Frontier becomes The Frontier when Howard Hughes (more on this epic dude later) buys it in 1967. The casino keeps this name until it is closed en imploded on Tuesday the 13th of November The Frontier 2007 at 2.37am.



The Frontier was put down to make room for a project called The New York Plaza. However, eight years later the ground is still vacant AS **** (Trooper style).

My first Vegas trip was a stay at The Frontier in the Spring of 1992. I was a broke college student, so the 25-cent roulette and $1 blackjack table made my daily $100 gambling budget feasible.

Memories from that trip include drinking a 64 oz margarita, getting propositioned by a TS hooker, and being awakened each morning by angry picketers outside participating in the labor strike.

That trip hooked me. Going strong with an estimated 30+ trips under my belt.