Posted on: December 29, 2023, 08:04h.
Last updated on: December 19, 2023, 10:55h.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes every Monday, with a bonus Flashback Friday edition. Today’s entry in our ongoing series originally ran on Oct. 28, 2022.
The “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada” sign is a liar, not about the fabulous part, but rather, about it welcoming anyone to Las Vegas. The sign sits four whole miles south of the city of Las Vegas on a portion of Las Vegas Boulevard that takes motorists from Enterprise, Nev., into Paradise, Nev. Both are unincorporated Clark County townships.
What the world thinks of Las Vegas is not in Las Vegas. If your entire Las Vegas trip consists of landing at Harry Reid International Airport and staying and playing on the Strip, you’ll never once set foot in the city of Las Vegas.
OK. So can’t the sign be interpreted as welcoming motorists to the greater Las Vegas metropolitan area, then? No, that would be another lie. The Las Vegas Valley starts near Sloan, Nev., 11 miles south of the sign.
What Gives?
Money. Also, a little secret that the owners of the original Las Vegas Strip hotels – and, for that matter, probably today’s – didn’t want visitors knowing: Paradise, Nev., is a place they made up to avoid paying taxes to the city of Las Vegas and to skirt its stricter laws and regulations.
By 1950, the Pair-o-Dice Club, Thunderbird, El Rancho, Last Frontier, Flamingo, and Desert Inn had already gone up on either side of Highway 91, as the main road from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles was then known. So, Las Vegas Mayor Ernie Cragin made a natural move.
Since the area was no longer undeveloped Clark County desert, and since its glimmering new casino resorts diverted a growing amount of the traffic bound for Las Vegas from LA, he attempted to annex it. Expanding the city’s tax base at the time would have funded his ambitious building agenda and paid down the city’s rising debt.
Property taxes inside the city limits were much greater than outside ($5 per $100 of valuation versus $3.48 per $100). Gambling and liquor license fees and taxes cost more, too. This didn’t sit well with a group of casino executives led by Gus Greenbaum, who gangster Meyer Lansky installed as the late Bugsy Siegel’s replacement in charge of the Flamingo in 1947. The group lobbied Clark County’s commissioners for township status. This would have prevented any annexation without the commission’s approval.
Many internet sources accuse the commission of accepting mafia bribes to create the township of Paradise, which is certainly possible, if not probable. The lobbyists also included Desert Inn “owner” Wilbur Clark, who was the frontman for Cleveland mobster Moe Dalitz. Former UNLV history professor Eugene Moehring’s 1989 book, “Resorts City in the Sunbelt,” suggested the commissioners had other incentives to vote to establish the township.
“Victory came on Dec. 8, 1950, when county commissioners, anxious to block the expansion of Las Vegas while enlarging their own tax and power bases, acceded to the petitioners’ request,” he wrote.
Paradise took its name from the area’s previous name. Paradise Valley, known since at least 1910, featured an unusually high water table, making the land a paradise for farmers. At the time of the township’s creation, it was one mile wide and four miles long. A month later, it was expanded to include all residential areas of Paradise Valley, growing to 54 square miles.
Fool’s Paradise
Any doubts about the new township’s legitimacy were confirmed by the composition of its first town board, which consisted entirely of Greenbaum, Dalitz, and executives from the El Rancho, Last Frontier, and Thunderbird. (Incidentally, eight years after Paradise was formed, Greenbaum followed in Siegel’s footsteps in another way by becoming the victim of another never-solved gangland-style murder.)
Though now located in Paradise, the Highway 91 casino hotels all continued describing their location in their marketing campaigns, on their postcards, and their properties as Las Vegas. And the megaresorts that replaced them still do to this day. And it’s easy to understand why. Perpetuating this myth allows them to enjoy the international fame conveyed by a Las Vegas address without paying a dime in city taxes.
Why is it Called Las Vegas Boulevard/the Las Vegas Strip?
When construction began on Interstate 15, which took over as the main route from LA to Salt Lake City, Highway 91’s name was changed to reflect its functional transition to a local road. Since it led to Las Vegas, it officially became Las Vegas Boulevard in 1959.
The casino hotel operators couldn’t be happier since it made Paradise seem even more like Las Vegas to tourists.
The earliest known reference to Highway 91 as “The Strip” appeared in a March 1947 newspaper advertisement for a new casino hotel called the Big Hat. “Direct from Ciro’s and Lindy’s,” it described the musical act the Alperi Trio, “Los Angeles’ Sunset Strip to Las Vegas’ Strip.” (Lindy’s Steakhouse was torn down long ago, Ciro’s became the Comedy Store in 1972.)
According to the widow of former L.A. cop Guy McAfee, her late husband had been using the nickname “The Strip” since shortly after he purchased the tiny Pair-O-Dice casino on the deserted road in 1939. It was a purely sarcastic comparison to the bustling Sunset Strip he left behind.
This story may be apocryphal, however, since there is no record of it until after McAfee’s January 1960 death. Regardless, in 1959, once Interstate 15 was under construction, Highway 91 was decommissioned and renamed Las Vegas Boulevard to reflect its functional transition to a local road, and the Las Vegas Strip became common parlance.
That same year, Clark County hired Western Electric Displays to further codify this myth. The company installed the Betty Willis-designed “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign.
Look for a new “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Visit VegasMythsBusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth we haven’t busted yet? Email corey@casino.org.
