If Vegas is our Jerusalem, Howard Robard Hughes is our Yahweh, the spirit of entrepreneurship run amok, devouring everything in sight. When Howard Hughes moved into his penthouse suite at the Desert Inn, the great opus was complete: the temple had been constructed, and the spirit in flesh dwelled therein. Sinatra and the Rat Pack embodied the hedonistic hustler ethos and swagger of a country that had never known defeat, riders on an ever-expanding frontier of growth and dominion. It was about a city that celebrated the fast and loose ethics that made America great.īy the late 50s, early 60s, Vegas was firmly entrenched as the New Jerusalem, the glitzy and irresistible core of the American spirit. It was about gambling and showgirls, adult entertainment with a wholesome, patriotic veneer. Pre-Mirage Vegas is the mob town, the open city, where gangsters rubbed elbows with famous entertainers and tourists reveled in the "anything goes" mentality at play. The history of Las Vegas as we know it today consists of two phases: pre-Mirage and post-Mirage. About 30 million people a year visit Vegas. ![]() When the Italian mob joined forces with the Jewish mob to form the Combination, this was the ultimate fantasy, and they built a monument to vice and depravity without peer to celebrate and solidify their union.Īfter WWII, Las Vegas rapidly grew into one of the top resorts in the world, and by 1995 it had become the destination of choice for foreign visitors to the USA, with 100,000 hotel rooms boasting 90 percent occupancy and one of the busiest airports in the world. Even then, the town never really amounted to much until 1931, when gambling became legal. Nothing much happened until the railroad came through in 1905. The Mormons came in the 1850s to this place called "The Meadows," looking to teach the local native population the finer points of agriculture. It has happened, and it will happen again. ![]() There is a very distinct possibility, however remote, that at any given moment in time some down-at-the-heels loser traveling by Greyhound in search of a future could roll into town, drop his last dollar into a slot and walk out filthy stinking rich. It looms over the desert like a neon Stonehenge, glittering and glowing, pulsating with hope, the throbbing center of the classic rags-to-riches dumb-luck American Dream. It is our Jerusalem, our Rome, our Mecca. Las Vegas is the spiritual heart of America. ![]() Heaven or Las Vegas Loving the Disneyland of the Desert
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