Two local operators financed a riverboat-themed casino on Boulder Highway in 1954, a $2 million gamble on a stretch of road nowhere near the Strip. Over the next half-century it was incorporated, taken public, sold to a billion-dollar corporation, sold again, shut down and demolished. The company that bought it in 1998 is still in… Continue reading The Showboat Opened on Boulder Highway for $2 Million on Sept. 3, 1954. The Company That Bought It for $1.5 Billion in 1998 Renamed Itself Caesars Entertainment in 2010.
Category: Local News
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Visited Las Vegas on April 26 and 27, 1964, for the NAACP’s Freedom Fund Banquet. He Never Came Back.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spent two days in Las Vegas in April 1964, speaking at the NAACP’s Freedom Fund Banquet and a public rally. It was his only visit to the city, and neither the City of Las Vegas’s own historical record nor UNLV’s oral history archives preserve a transcript of what he said.
The Nature Conservancy Bought Ash Meadows From a Developer’s 25,000-Lot Subdivision Plan in 1984. A Mining Company Tried Drilling the Same Groundwater in 2023.
Preferred Equities Corporation held approved plans for a 25,000-lot subdivision on Ash Meadows’ desert springs until The Nature Conservancy bought the land in 1984 and handed it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Decades later, a Canadian mining company proposed drilling into the same groundwater before federal regulators shut the project down in days.
Genevieve Harrison Opened a Boarding House for Black Travelers on F Street in 1942 Because Las Vegas Hotels Wouldn’t. It’s the Only Guest House of Its Kind Still Standing in the City.
Genevieve Harrison opened a boarding house on F Street in 1942 because Las Vegas’s Strip hotels would not rent a room to a Black traveler, performer or defense worker. The National Park Service now calls her house the only known example of its type still standing in the city. What was once one option among… Continue reading Genevieve Harrison Opened a Boarding House for Black Travelers on F Street in 1942 Because Las Vegas Hotels Wouldn’t. It’s the Only Guest House of Its Kind Still Standing in the City.
The Nevada Legislature Passed a Law in 1979 Claiming State Control of Nearly All the Federal Land Within Its Borders. The Law Was Never Enforced, and Congress Is Still Fighting Over the Same Acres.
In 1979, Nevada’s Legislature passed a law declaring that nearly all the federal land inside the state’s borders belonged under state control, not Washington’s. The law was never enforced, and the same roughly 86% of Nevada the bill was written for is still managed by the federal government today. Nevada’s congressional delegation is still fighting… Continue reading The Nevada Legislature Passed a Law in 1979 Claiming State Control of Nearly All the Federal Land Within Its Borders. The Law Was Never Enforced, and Congress Is Still Fighting Over the Same Acres.
Nevada Opened Casino Ownership to Publicly Traded Corporations in 1967. Thirty of Them, Based as Far Away as the UK and Japan, Still Answer to That Same Law.
Until 1967, Nevada forced every stockholder in a casino company to pass an individual background check — a rule that made it nearly impossible for any company traded on a public exchange to own a casino at all. Nevada rewrote that rule to raise capital, and the law it wrote is still the reason a… Continue reading Nevada Opened Casino Ownership to Publicly Traded Corporations in 1967. Thirty of Them, Based as Far Away as the UK and Japan, Still Answer to That Same Law.
The U.S. Supreme Court Ruled in 1985 That Depositing $26 Million Extinguished Western Shoshone Land Title. Carrie and Mary Dann Never Touched the Money.
The federal government decided the Western Shoshone no longer owned 24 million acres of Nevada the moment it deposited money into a trust account the tribe never asked for and refused to touch. Four decades later, the organization the women who fought that ruling founded is making the same argument against the lithium mines now… Continue reading The U.S. Supreme Court Ruled in 1985 That Depositing $26 Million Extinguished Western Shoshone Land Title. Carrie and Mary Dann Never Touched the Money.
The Nevada Supreme Court Struck Down Clark County’s Police-Death Inquest Process in 2012. One Sentence About Who Could Preside Brought Down the Whole System.
Clark County spent nearly two years rebuilding how it investigates people killed by police, adding an ombudsman and lawyers for officers to a process the public had stopped trusting. The Nevada Supreme Court threw out the entire rebuilt system in one ruling — over a single sentence nobody flagged until officers sued. Nevada law lets… Continue reading The Nevada Supreme Court Struck Down Clark County’s Police-Death Inquest Process in 2012. One Sentence About Who Could Preside Brought Down the Whole System.
The Nevada Legislature Made Valley of Fire the State’s First State Park in 1935. It Still Closes Its Own Trails Each Summer So the Same Heat Doesn’t Kill Hikers.
Valley of Fire got its name sometime in the 1920s, when an unnamed AAA official reportedly looked at the park’s red sandstone at sunset and said it looked like it was on fire, according to Nevada State Parks’ official history of the site. A century later, the state park built to show off that landscape… Continue reading The Nevada Legislature Made Valley of Fire the State’s First State Park in 1935. It Still Closes Its Own Trails Each Summer So the Same Heat Doesn’t Kill Hikers.
Hattie Canty Became Culinary Union Local 226’s President in 1990. The Strike She Led the Next Year Is Still Called the Longest Labor Strike in American History.
Hattie Canty buried her husband in 1975, raised ten children on a hotel maid’s wages, and by 1990 led Nevada’s largest private-sector union. The strike she’s remembered for lasted six years and ended only after costing one hotel’s owner roughly $1 billion. The multiracial coalition she built inside the Culinary Union is the same one… Continue reading Hattie Canty Became Culinary Union Local 226’s President in 1990. The Strike She Led the Next Year Is Still Called the Longest Labor Strike in American History.
