Las Vegas: A Centennial History

by Eugene P. Moehring, Michael S. Green

Overview

The meteoric rise of Las Vegas from a remote Mormon outpost to an international entertainment center was never a sure thing. In its first decades, the town languished, but when Nevada legalized casino gambling in 1931, Las Vegas met its destiny. This act—combined with the growing popularity of the automobile, cheap land and electricity, and changing national attitudes toward gambling—led to the fantastic casinos and opulent resorts that became the trademark industry of the city and created the ambiance that has made Las Vegas an icon of pleasure.
            This volume celebrates the city’s unparalleled growth, examining both the development of its gaming industry and the creation of an urban complex that over two million people proudly call home. Here are the colorful characters who shaped the city as well as the political, business, and civic decisions that influenced its growth. The story extends chronologically from the first Paiute people to the construction of the latest megaresorts, and geographically far beyond the original township to include the several municipalities that make up today’s vast metropolitan Las Vegas area.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780874176155
Publisher:	University of Nevada Press
Publication date:	03/16/2005
Series:	Shepperson Series in Nevada History
Edition description:	1
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	7.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 18 Years

About the Author

Eugene Moehring is a professor of history and chair of the history department at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received his Ph.D. in 1976 from the City University of New York and his B.A. (1968) and M.A. (1970) in history from Queens College. A specialist in urban history, he also taught courses in business history, the U.S. since 1920, Nevada history, and the history of science.
  
Michael S. Green is the author of several books on the Civil War era and Nevada history, and he serves as editor in chief of the Nevada Historical Society Quarterly. He is professor of history at the Community College of Southern Nevada, where he specializes in nineteenth-century politics and the American West.

Read an Excerpt

Las Vegas is many things to many people. During the past half century, Las Vegas has become an icon of gambling and leisure. It attracts more than 35 million visitors annually, more than Orlando, more even than Mecca in Saudi Arabia. To most of these visitors, it is ‘Sin City,’ the ‘City Without Clocks’ where ‘What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas.’
But to the people who live here, the better word to describe Las Vegas is ‘home.’ To these people—over 1.7 million of them according to the 2000 census, and more arriving every day—the metropolitan Las Vegas area is where they work, raise families, go to school, play ball or go jogging, and dream the same dreams and live the same lives as their fellow Americans all over the country. That the city’s major industry involves a sometimes forbidden activity (gambling), and an attitude unappreciated by puritans of all stripes—the pursuit of pleasure in all forms—does not contradict the fact that the majority of Las Vegans earn their living in ordinary workplaces like offices, shops, and construction sites, and in the same vast range of occupations and professions that other Americans pursue.

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	ix
	Preface	xiii
	Acknowledgments	xvii
1	Before the City	1
2	Birth of a Railroad Town, 1902-1910	9
3	A New City Takes Shape, 1911-1920	37
4	Setting the Tone, 1920s	57
5	The Dam Era: Railroad Town into Tourist Town	80
6	World War and Its Aftermath: Gambling Becomes King	101
7	City and Strip: Laying a Metropolitan Foundation	132
8	Growth and Community Conflict, 1960s	171
9	Gaming and World Recognition	205
10	Suburbanization and Diversity, 1970-2005	225
	Bibliography	251
	Index	261