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This History of Las Vegas covers both the Las Vegas, Nevada and the Las Vegas metropolitan area. Las Vegas was given its name by the members French of the Antonio Armijo party in 1829[1] who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from New Mexico. In the 1800s, small parts of the Las Vegas Valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas, hence the name Las Vegas, Spanish for The Meadows. The flows from these wells fed the Las Vegas Wash which ran to the Colorado River.
The prehistoric landscape of what is now the Las Vegas Valley and most of Southern Nevada was a virtual marsh of abundant water and vegetation. Over the course of hundreds of thousands of years, rivers that were present sank into the ground, and the marsh receded. The valley evolved into a parched, arid landscape that only supported the hardiest of animals and plants.
At some point in the valley's geologic history, the water that had been submerged below the terrain sporadically resurfaced and flowed into what is now the Colorado River. This helped proliferate luxurious plant life, creating a wetland oasis in the Mojave Desert landscape.
Evidence of prehistoric life in Las Vegas Valley manifested in 1993 when construction workers discovered the remains of a Columbian mammoth. Paleontologists estimate that the mammoth roamed the area some 8,000 to 15,000 years ago.
The Las Vegas valley was discovered in 1829 by a trade caravan of 60 men which was lead by the Mexican merchant Antonio Armijo, whilst creating a trade loute to Los Angeles by following a tributary from the Colorado River which eventually lead to the Las Vegas Valley. The travellers named the area "Las Vegas" which was Spanish for "The meadows."[2]
John C. Frémont traveled into the Las Vegas Valley on May 3, 1844, while it was still part of Mexico. He was a leader of a group of scientists, scouts and observers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On May 10, 1855, following annexation by the United States, Brigham Young assigned 30 Mormon missionaries led by William Bringhurst to the area to convert the Paiute Indian population. A fort was built near the current downtown area. The Mormons abandoned the site in 1857, due to internal disagreements between Bringhurst and new comers who had more liberal views. The skeleton staff that was left behind mistreated the Paiute Indians. The Paiute retaliated and seized the upcoming harvest, forcing the last of the settlers back to Salt Lake City.
The U.S. Army, in an attempt to deceive Confederate spies in 1864, falsely publicized that it reclaimed the fort and had renamed it Fort Baker.
In 1865, Octavius Gass re-occupied the fort, and started the irrigation works renaming the area to Los Vegas Rancho. Due to his ability to make wine on his ranch, Las Vegas was known as the best stop on the Mormon Trail. By 1872, Gass was able to expand his ranch to 640 acres (2.6 km²), and as a legislator, was able to have the territory his ranch resided on included as part of Nevada instead of Arizona. In 1881 as a result of mismanagement, Gass lost title to his ranch to Archibald Stewart, who acquired it to pay off a lien he had on the property. In 1884, Archibald's wife, Helen J. Stewart became the Las Vegas Postmaster.
The property (which was expanded to 1,800 acres (7 km²)), stayed with the Stewart Family despite Archibald's murder in July of 1884 until it was acquired in 1902 to by the San Pedro, Los Angeles, and Salt Lake Railroad, then being constructed across southern Nevada. The railroad was a project of Montana Senator William Andrews Clark, the namesake of Clark County, Nevada.
Las Vegas circa 1895The State Land Act of 1885 offered land at $1.25 per acre ($309/km²) drawing many, including farmers, to the area. As a result, farming became the primary industry for the next 20 years as farmers used the wells to irrigate their crops. The Mormons returned in 1895.
During the 1900s, water from the wells were piped into the town providing a reliable source of fresh water and providing the means for additional growth. The increased availability of water in the town area allowed Las Vegas to become a water stop, first for wagon trains and later railroads, on the trail between Los Angeles, California, and points east such as Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In 1905 the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad from Salt Lake City to Southern California was completed in 1905. The SP,LA & SL RR was started by U.S. Senator William Andrews Clark who was also the majority owner. The railroad was incorporated in Utah. Among it's original incorporator's were Utah's U.S. Senator Thomas Kearns and his business partner David Keith. Kearns, one of the richest and most powerful men in Utah and David Keith were the owners of Utah's Silver King Coalition Mine, several mines in Nevada and owners of The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper. Kearns and Keith helped Clark ensure the success of the new railroad across Utah and into Nevada to California. That year also set the stage of the two Las Vegases. The east-side Las Vegas (which encompassed the modern Main Street and Las Vegas Boulevard) was owned by Clark and the west-side Las Vegas (which encompassed the area north of modern day Bonanza Road) which was owned by J.T. McWilliams, who was hired by the Stewart family during the sale of the Los Vegas Rancho and bought available land west of the ranch. In 1905 both auctioned lots on their land.
With the revenue coming from the rails and the mining town of Bullfrog, Las Vegas took off. On May 15, 1905, Las Vegas was founded as a city, when 110 ac (445,000 m²), in what would later become downtown, were auctioned to ready buyers.
Las Vegas was the driving force in the creation of Clark County, Nevada in 1909 and the city was incorporated in 1911 as a part of the county.
Las Vegas continued to grow until 1917 when the Las Vegas and Tonopah Railroad went broke. Although William Clark sold the remains of the company to the Union Pacific Railroad, a nationwide strike in 1922 left Las Vegas in a desperate state.
With U.S. Highway 91 reaching Las Vegas in 1926, Vegas was finally connected to California with a road. Even the addition of a modern road did not help revitalizing Las Vegas. In 1929, John Calhan, a newspaperman, said People in the city of Reno, or northern Nevada would have been very happy if Las Vegas had seceded from the state ...
On July 3, 1930, President Herbert Hoover signed the appropriation bill for the Boulder Dam. Work started on the dam in 1931 and Las Vegas' population swelled from around 5,000 citizens to 25,000, with most of the newcomers looking for a job building the dam. Las Vegas tried hard to put on a respectable air when the Secretary of the Interior Lyman Wilbur visited in 1929 to inspect the site. However one of his subordinates came to him with alcohol on his breath (this was during the time of Prohibition) after a visit to Block 16. It was decided that a federal-controlled town, Boulder City, would be erected for the dam workers. This still did not stop the flow of federal and dam worker money into Las Vegas and the city was recharged, literally, when the dam was completed in 1935. In 1937, Southern Nevada Power became the first utility to supply power from the dam, and Las Vegas was its first customer. After much discussion the name of the dam was changed from Boulder to Hoover Dam.
With gambling legalized in 1931, Las Vegas started its rise to world fame as the gambling capital of the world. Gambling (although already legal in Las Vegas) became organized and regulated. The city issued the first gambling license in 1931 to the Northern Club , and soon other casinos were licensed on Fremont Street like the Las Vegas Club and the Apache Hotel. Fremont Street developed its nickname as Glitter Gulch from all of the lights that were powered by electricity from Hoover Dam. Hoover Dam and its reservoir, Lake Mead, turned into tourist attractions on their own and the need for additional higher class hotels became clear. Fremont Street received the city's first traffic light in 1931.
In 1940, U.S. Highway 95 was finally extended south into Las Vegas, giving the city two major roads that provided access from the rest of the country. Also in 1940 Las Vegas's first permanent radio station, KENO, began broadcasting replacing the niche occupied earlier by transient broadcasters.
On January 25, 1941 the U.S. Army moved into Las Vegas when Las Vegas Mayor, John L. Russell, signed over land to the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps for the development of a flexible gunnery school for the United States Army Air Corps. The gunnery school would become Nellis Air Force Base. The U.S Army was not pleased with prostitution being legal in Las Vegas and in 1942 used its clout to force Las Vegas to outlaw the practice, handing Block 16, which since the inception of Las Vegas, was the equivalent of the city's red-light district, its death sentence.
On April 3, 1941, hotel owner Thomas Hull opened the El Rancho Vegas. It was the first resort on what would become the Las Vegas Strip. The hotel gained much of its fame from the all you can eat buffet that it offered.
Three years later, on October 30, 1942, R. E. Griffith rebuilt on the site of a nightclub called Pair-O-Dice,[3] that first opened in 1930, and renamed it Hotel Last Frontier. A few more resorts were built on and around Fremont Street but the next hotel on the Strip publicly demonstrated the influence of organized crime on Las Vegas. Gangster Bugsy Siegel, with help from friend and fellow mob boss Meyer Lansky as well as other hoods, built The Flamingo in 1946.