Las Vegas in the 1950s
[2] From 1952 to 1957, through money and institutional lending provided by the Teamsters Union and some Mormon bankers, they built the Sahara, the Sands, the New Frontier, the Royal Nevada, the Showboat, the Riviera, the Fremont, Binion's Horseshoe, and finally the Tropicana.
Gambling was no longer the only attraction by the 1950s; the biggest stars of films and music like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Andy Williams, Liberace, Bing Crosby, Carol Channing, and others performed in intimate settings and brought a whole new brigade of Hollywood film stars and others in the entertainment business to the city.
The hearing concluded that organized crime money was incontrovertibly tied to the Las Vegas casinos and was becoming the controlling interest in the city thereby earning for the groups vast amounts of income which was strengthening their influence in the country.
Binion later served time in the Leavenworth Penitentiary from 1953 to 1957 for tax evasion and sold his share of the casino to fellow gambler Joe W. Brown.
The giant neon cowhand's creation was based on an image that was part of the promotional campaign launched by the slogan "Still a Frontier town".
The original figure (now restored) was of 40 ft height weighing about 6 tons (considered then as the largest such mechanical contraption sign in the world).
Along with his then wife Keely Smith and sax player Sam Butera, they created one of the largest late-night attractions on the Strip.
The greatest names in the entertainment industry graced the Copa Room Stage, the showroom at the Sands, named after the famed Copacabana Club in New York City,[12] including Judy Garland, Lena Horne, (she was billed at the Sands as "The Satin Doll"), Jimmy Durante, Pat Cooper, Shirley MacLaine, Marlene Dietrich, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Robert Merrill, Red Skelton, and many others.
Morelli not only acted as the band leader and musical conductor for the Copa Room during the hotel's Rat Pack heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, he also played that role on hundreds of recorded albums by those same entertainers who graced the stage of the Copa including Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, and many others.
[13] The Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority came to be established in 1953 and local television was also started in the same year on 22 July 1953 by Greenspun and others.
Gambling was no longer the only attraction; the biggest stars of films and music like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Liberace, Bing Crosby, Carol Channing, and others performed in intimate settings.
[15] The Last Frontier held a two weeks show by Ronald Reagan from 28 April 1954, and on that day, the Roxie's, a bordello on the Boulder Highway, was raided.
The Showboat Hotel and Casino was inaugurated on 3 September 1954 by Bill Moore, J. Kell Houssels, and Joe Kelley with a speech by then mayor C.D.
[17] The Showboat was built by William J. Moore of the Last Frontier and J. Kell Houssels of the Las Vegas Club[18] for $2 million.
[20] While Moore and Houssels ran the hotel, the casino was leased by a group of managers from the Desert Inn, including Moe Dalitz.
[19] After several unsuccessful years, Joe Kelley took over management, and began successfully targeting local customers with forty-nine cent breakfast specials and other promotions.
Kelley added a bowling alley in 1959, which soon became the Showboat's signature attraction, hosting nationally televised PBA tournaments.
The opening of the Riviera, along with The Dunes and the Royal Nevada casino resorts within a month were the subject of a famous issue of the magazine Life, on June 20, 1955, with a Moulin Rouge showgirl on its cover.
In December 1958, Greenbaum and his wife were murdered in their Phoenix, Arizona, home, reportedly on the orders of either Meyer Lansky or Tony Accardo.
[29] Jaffe aimed to build the finest hotel in Las Vegas, featuring a Cuban ambience, with four room themes for guests to choose from: French Provincial, Far East, Italian Renaissance, and Drexel.
The Gaming Control Board raised suspicions over Kastel's links to organized crime, which were confirmed in May when a note bearing a Tropicana earnings figure was found in the possession of mobster Frank Costello.
Irwin Molasky, Nathan Adelson, Moe Dalitz, and Allard Roen built Sunrise Hospital in the 1950s financed in part by US$1,000,000 loaned to them by Jimmy Hoffa from the Teamsters pension fund; Nathan's son, Merv Adelson served as the hospital's first president after it opened in 1958.
In 1959, the Clark County Commission built the Las Vegas Convention Center, which would become a vital part of the area's economy.
