Nevada’s top water regulator granted Las Vegas rights to nearly 84,000 acre-feet of rural groundwater in 2012, over the objections of tribes, ranchers and two Utah counties. A court threw out that approval within two years, and the pipeline that would have carried the water was never built. More than a decade later, the same… Continue reading Nevada Approved 83,988 Acre-Feet of Rural Groundwater for a Las Vegas Pipeline on March 22, 2012. The Coalition That Got It Reversed Is Still Fighting in Carson City.

Las Vegas casino owners signed a federal consent decree in 1971 promising to open 12 percent of resort industry jobs to Black workers, the outcome of a legal fight one civil rights attorney waged for more than a decade. Fifty-five years later, the gaming industry reports a workforce that is majority-minority — a statistic its… Continue reading A Federal Consent Decree Forced Nevada Casinos to Open 12% of Jobs to Black Workers on June 4, 1971. Nevada’s Own Historic Record Says Enforcement Never Held.

Las Vegas bartenders started organizing in 1934, when the Strip barely existed. Their union didn’t receive its formal charter until two decades later, and nine decades after that first organizing effort, its members were still walking a picket line outside a Strip casino. Bartenders Union Local 165 traces its founding to 1934, according to the… Continue reading Las Vegas Bartenders Chartered Their Union on June 15, 1954. Seven Decades Later, They Walked a Picket Line at Virgin Las Vegas.

LVMPD started requiring new officers to wear body cameras in 2013, two years before Nevada’s Legislature gave agencies the authority to do it and four years before lawmakers made it mandatory statewide. Thirteen years later, the fight isn’t over whether officers wear the cameras. It’s over what the public has to pay to watch what… Continue reading Nevada Required Body Cameras on Every Officer by 2017. This Year, the ACLU Sued LVMPD Over What It Charges to See the Footage.

Congress drew a line around Las Vegas in 1998 and let the federal government sell everything inside it. Twenty-eight years and $3.5 billion in land sales later, that same line is why Clark County is back in Washington asking for more room to grow. President Bill Clinton signed the Southern Nevada Public Land Management Act,… Continue reading Congress Drew a Federal Land-Sale Boundary Around Las Vegas in 1998. Clark County Is Now Asking for a Second One.

President Ulysses S. Grant fixed the Moapa Band of Paiutes’ reservation with nothing more than a river, a meridian and a straight line north. A century and a half later, that same ground carries the electrical output of three separate utility-scale solar plants, built after five decades of a coal plant that polluted it instead.… Continue reading An 1873 Executive Order Set Aside Moapa Land With Nothing but Rivers and Meridians. It Now Hosts Nevada’s Largest Cluster of Tribal Solar Power.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that a shallow limestone shelf inside a Nevada cave deserved federal water protection because a fish found nowhere else on Earth needs it to spawn. Two earthquakes swept that same shelf clean in 2024 and 2025, and the population the court’s ruling was designed to protect crashed to… Continue reading The Supreme Court Ruled in 1976 That Groundwater Pumping Couldn’t Drain Devils Hole. Earthquakes in 2024 and 2025 Nearly Undid What the Ruling Protected.

Nevada gaming regulators refused a casino manager a license in 1976, citing his criminal record and testimony about corruption. It took another decade of federal investigation to prove the company that employed him was a front for organized crime — and the licensing power regulators used against him in 1976 is still the tool the… Continue reading Nevada Denied Frank Rosenthal a Gaming License in 1976. A Federal Case a Decade Later Proved the Casinos He Ran Were Mob-Owned All Along.

Nevada’s governor helped broker an end to Strip segregation in a single meeting at a shuttered casino in 1960. Sixty-six years later, the neighborhood that hosted that meeting is only beginning to see public investment on a comparable scale. The Moulin Rouge Hotel opened May 24, 1955, at 900 West Bonanza Road in Las Vegas,… Continue reading The Moulin Rouge Agreement Desegregated the Strip on March 26, 1960. The Historic Westside Is Only Now Getting Investment to Match It.