American Experience (1988–…): Season 18, Episode 3 - Las Vegas: An Unconventional History: Part 1 - full transcript

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Las Vegas is the place
where the steam gets let off.

It's like a vacation.

People c come here and feel
they're living a naughtier life.

Cocktails?

Las Vegas is clockless,

and in that sense, it does throw
your whole rhythm off.



I think that that induces

a kind of spacelessness
and weightlessness

and a placelessness

so that Las Vegas becomes
a world into itself.

Yoo-hoo!

I mean, this is after all
a city in the desert,

so Las Vegas suggests,
of course,

that the whole rest of the world
is the desert

and it is the oasis.

We don't want anything in Las
Vegas that upsets the tourists

and if it's a touch of reality
that is not pretty,

then we want to get rid of it.

You don't want to come
in contact with reality

when you're here for fantasy.

It's not a deeply

introspective culture.

It's not
about the interior life.

Paging 3-5-5-7...

There is no gap between
the thought and the act.

It isn't like you say,

"Oh, should I do this,
should I do this?"

It's like...

Am I going to walk you down
the aisle and give you away?

So that kind of hesitation
and contemplation is not

really a part of this culture.

Maybe there's some mystical
thing about Las Vegas.

You know, you'd like to think
that man governs and dominates

all the decisions
that make history unfold.

But clearly people must have
been in the right place

at the right time.

Now, some could say
it's just nature.

I say it's luck.

There's so much more to Vegas
than the Strip.

And once you get here
and see what else they have,

you won't even come
to the Strip.

Housekeeping.

Hello.

Well, when I lived
in California,

I didn't have
that many opportunities,

but here they got
so many hotels coming up,

stores opening up every day.

So you can get a job real easy.

It might not be the job you want

but it'll be a job
until you get the job you want.

My brother moved here
to Las Vegas,

so I've been coming here
to visit him

and he said,
"You should come up here.

It's easy to get a house up here
and stuff."

When you apply for it, you can
move into a brand-new house.

They build it the way you want...

You know, the way
you want them to.

No money down.

Not a penny.

Now, that was for me!

I was ready for that.

So it's... it's real nice.

It's a two-bedroom,
two-bathroom.

But right now I'm thinking
about getting a bigger house,

because I have three
granddaughters now.

So we're going to get
a bigger place.

It's just like any other town.

It has clubs, zoos...

You wouldn't think Vegas would
have a zoo, but they got a zoo.

When we come to Vegas, we come
straight down the boulevard

and we stayed on the Strip...

But, you know, once you gamble
and lose your money,

you go home.

What else to stay for?

But it's a real town.

This is indeed
the best move I ever made.

I wasn't established
in California.

I went there in 1970.

I never bought a house;
I never owned anything.

And when you get in your 40s,

you have to own something,
you know.

So soon as I moved here,
I got my jobs,

got a new car, got a new truck,
got a new house...

And I've only been here
six years.

I cleaned up.

I think the hold of this place
is... it's on the edge.

And it needs to be.

It's always been a place where
you look out of your windows

and see the sun rise
or set on the desert

and know that there are snakes
and serpents out there.

It's biblical in that way,

and if you can imagine the place
devoid of all construction,

you would quickly say,

"Well, who on earth
would have come here?"

Because it's not a sensible
place to build a city,

and I think there is
still that feeling of...

kind of loony surreal triumph
over the elements.

You know, "Damn those elements.

We can beat them."

A more godforsaken locale could
scarcely have been imagined.

But in 1930, in the midst
of the Great Depression,

southern Nevada's Black Canyon
looked to many Americans

like paradise.

In just six months,

some 42,000 men descended
on that desolate spot,

desperate to land one
of the 5,000 construction jobs

on the Boulder Dam,
also known as Hoover Dam,

a massive engineering project

that would harness
the mighty Colorado River

for the benefit of a half dozen
states throughout the Southwest.

For 4½ long years,

the dam workers would spend
their days

slaving between walls
of stubborn hard rock

that was literally too hot
to be touched

and their nights penned up
in Boulder City,

a federal reservation with
few of the comforts of home

and all of the same
hometown rules:

no gambling, no prostitution
and absolutely no liquor.

They lived for payday.

They blew out of Boulder City
as if it were on fire

and headed straight
for a dusty little town

in the middle of the Mojave
called Las Vegas.

There, along a two-block stretch
of Fremont Street,

the town's main drag,

and in the nearby red-light
district known as Block 16

they encountered one
of the greatest concentrations

of wide-open vice to be found
anywhere in Prohibition America:

a bawdy, brightly lit cluster
of gambling dens

and hot-sheet prostitution cribs

and saloon after saloon
after saloon.

They were living in these camps
in this unforgiving desert

in a state of real lockdown.

And let's face it, there is
absolutely nothing to do.

So you had two choices

on payday in Boulder City.

You could stay back in the camp

and not drink and maybe play
some cards with your friends

and wait for night to come,

or you could hit Fremont Street
and gamble and drink

and party
until your check ran out.

Now, which one would you choose?

Founded in 1905
as a railroad town,

Las Vegas had enjoyed about
a dozen years of prosperity,

catering to passengers
on layover

and supplying the mining camps
to the north and south.

But its stint
as a classic western boomtown

had been short-lived.

In 1922, after a national strike
idled the line through the town

for nearly a month,

the railroad moved
its repair shops

and laid off hundreds of people.

Many businesses went belly-up,
and some observers thought sure

the place would wind up
a ghost town.

In desperation, local boosters
dreamed up wild schemes

to keep the town afloat:

a county fairground...

dude ranches
for prospective divorcées...

and a nine-hole golf course

that lacked
only one key component: grass.

But nothing really worked.

In the end, what saved Las Vegas

was Nevada's historic tolerance
for sin.

Nevada lacked the resources
that other states had.

It was so arid

that it lacked enough water
to develop industries.

In 1890, Nevada was the lowest
populated state in the union.

It had less people

than you could fit
in Fenway Park in Boston.

Some states actually
talked about Nevada

becoming part of California

and abolishing Nevada
altogether.

And so in order to keep people
here and keep the economy going,

none of the towns really
abolished their frontier vices

immediately.

Well, I mean,
the history of Nevada,

I mean, it's just a big desert,
you know.

With nothing in between here
and Reno.
It's an eight-hour drive

I mean, it's really nowhere.

And its whole tradition
is doing illegal stuff.

You know, I mean, they do
divorces, they do prize fights.

They do all this stuff that was
banned from Prohibition America.

And so this became the way
you make money in the desert.

But it wasn't until early 1931

that Nevada had truly solidified
its reputation

as the nation's rogue state.

At a time when games of chance
were illegal

everywhere else in the country,

and diehard gamblers
had to play in back alleys

and underground clubs...

Nevada lawmakers had taken
the scandalous step

of legalizing wide-open,
casino-style gambling.

Las Vegas's Fremont Street was
wall-to-wall gambling houses,

and penny slot machines
had been installed

in nearly every gas station
and grocery store in town.

This allowed East Coast
America, academia,

Washington, the churches,
to say Sodom and Gomorrah...

An enormous stain upon Nevada
in the eyes of the East,

which I think lingers
to this day.

Legal gambling alone would
likely never have brought people

to a place as remote
as Las Vegas.

But with the pleasure-starved
residents of Boulder City

now just down the road,

the desert outpost was
about to make a killing.

Curiosity about the dam
boosted business even further.

In 1932, some 100,000 people
went to gawk

at what was fast becoming known

as the eighth wonder
of the world,

and many paused en route

to sample the unique attractions
of Las Vegas.

By that time,

the opportunistic town had long
since taken to billing itself

as the "Gateway
to the Boulder Dam."

Then, in 1935, President
Franklin Roosevelt came to town.

We are here to celebrate

the completion of
the greatest dam in the world.

Within a matter of months,

the thousands of dam workers
abruptly disappeared.

Fremont Street,
one observer remembered,

was suddenly "as empty
as could be found."

Thanks mainly to the dam,

Las Vegans had discovered
the immense potential for profit

in America's forbidden desires.

But to fully exploit it,

they would have to find a way
to lure people to the desert.

For now,
the prospects seemed dim.

As one writer put it, "The
people were not here yesterday,

and they will not
be here tomorrow."

There is a thread

that runs through the whole
history of this place

as it relates to America
and American culture.

It's a refuge.

It's a place that you run to.

It's a place
that you indulge yourself in.

It's a way out of
the incredible straitjacket

that we find ourselves in

in our highly regimented
and regulated lives.

A lot of people come to Vegas
and get married

because they start planning
a wedding at home,

and the cost gets out of hand.

You might have Cousin Charlie
come along

and say, "Oh, you can't
do it that way,

And then grandma says,
"Well, you got to do this."

And they say, "Forget it."

They get on an airplane,
come to Vegas and get married.

Will you love, honor, respect

and be faithful to him

all the days of your life?

Yes.

Marriage is an honorable estate

instituted by God
in the very beginning
of man.

It is, therefore,
never to be entered
into lightly

but reverently, sincerely,
and in the love of God.

♪ Bright-light city ♪

♪ Gonna set my soul,
gonna set my soul on fire ♪

♪ Gotta whole lot of money... ♪

I've been doing weddings
ten years

and I have done a little more
than 37,000.

86 is the most
I've done in a day.

♪ Viva, Las Vegas.. ♪

I did one wedding onstage
in a total nude joint.

I did a commitment ceremony
one night

for a man and his motorcycle.

I had a lady come in one day,

had a couple of attendants
with her, were all dressed up.

She wanted to marry herself.

I notice that one of you
lives in New Orleans

and one lives in Metairie.

Metairie, yeah.

Metairie?
Mm-hmm.

Are one of you going to move

or are you going to...

Yeah, he's coming.

Or are you going to be happy?

We going to move together.

The wedding chapels
are a business.

Right there, guys.

I think that some
of the ministers

that do weddings in this town
confuse that with a ministry,

but I roll with the punches.

Whatever these people want
is okay with me.

Jürgen, do you take Goudrin
to be your lawful wedded wife?

Yes, I do.

Goudrin, do you take Jürgen

to be your lawful
wedded husband?

Yes.

By the powers vested in me

by the state of Nevada,

I pronounce you husband
and wife.

You got a wedding down there?

Okay.

All right, hold onto them.

I'll be there as quick as I can.

I think marriage is great.

Place your bets,
ladies and gentlemen.

The British writer
Somerset Maugham

once described Monte Carlo,

the glamorous gambling resort
on the French Riviera,

as "a sunny place
for shady people."

By the early 1940s,

the same might have been said
of Las Vegas.

The first big wave of so-called
"sporting life" characters

had arrived back in 1938,

after a reform-minded mayor
ran them out of Los Angeles.

An easy day-trip
from the City of Angels,

Las Vegas had become
the obvious destination

for the scores
of illegal gambling operators

and card sharks
and dirty cops on the lam.

They gravitated to the city
because they had the expertise.

They knew more than
many of the local yokels

who were running
the small casinos

of how to make customers happy,
how to give comps,

And they brought a real
expertise in casino management

to Las Vegas.

Now me one of
the more infamous denizens

of LA's underworld,

a dapper
and often volatile mobster

by the name
of Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

A key player

in the national
crime organization

known as the syndicate,

Siegel, at 36, was arguably

one of the most crooked
entrepreneurs of his time.

He'd spent most
of the 1930s in Hollywood,

overseeing LA's half-a-million-
dollar-a-day bookmaking
enterprise

and palling around with studio
executives and movie stars

on the side.

But when Nevada became
the only state in the Union

to legalize the racewire,

a service that relayed
thoroughbred racing results

to off-track bookies
across the country,

syndicate boss Meyer Lansky sent
Siegel to take over the action

in Las Vegas.

Bugsy Siegel was sent up
to Las Vegas in 1941

with Moe Sedway
to eliminate James Ragan

who owned a racewire here
that the mob did not control.

These guys came here and
they created a rival racewire.

They charged lower prices

and eventually they got rid
of Ragan by poisoning him.

Once they had eliminated Ragan,
it was obvious to Siegel

that there were real
possibilities here for the mob.

Las Vegas was still basically
a one-horse town...

A train depot and a row
of gaudy gambling joints

surrounded by thousands of acres
of undeveloped desert.

But there was every reason
to believe

the place was headed
for a spectacular boom.

Two new defense installations
had been recently situated

on the outskirts of town

which together had brought
thousands of people

and their payrolls
into Las Vegas's orbit.

And now that the country
was at war,

hordes of impatient couples

were already stampeding
over the border into Nevada,

where state law
allowed them to tie the knot

without waiting for the
blood tests required back home.

Since Las Vegas also performed
quickie divorces,

as one of the country's top
spots to dump a spouse,

Siegel figured the casinos
on Fremont Street

would soon be packed
to the rafters.

If the syndicate wanted
to get in on the ground floor,

he told Lansky,
now was the time.

Over the next several years,
with Lansky's blessing,

on Fremont Street,

before buying the El Cortez
outright in 1945.

The official owner
was a front man.

Behind him was
a roster of investors

that read like a Who's Who
of organized crime...

Men who got their share
of the profits

from cash skimmed off the top.

There's no taxes on a skim

and there's no bookkeeping
on a skim.

It is your up-front money.

When the mob controlled
one of these casinos,

they had their operatives
who would effectively supervise

what's called
the hard count room,

which is where you'd
count up the money

and you knew that
if Bob or Joe was the guy

who would come in literally
with a sack or with a box

and pick up some money
and walk out the door...

Well, nobody s anything.

It was a lot of money
came out of those places.

You would know,

there were people who had
the breakdown of how much...

This goes to Chicago, this goes
to Milwaukee, this goes here.

You knew to the penny
where that money was going

and who was getting it.

The scheme was so simple
and so profitable

that Siegel was soon
pushing the syndicate

to make a more sizable
investment,

this time in a risky
new development

roughly three miles
from the center of town,

on frontage bordering
Highway 91,

the two-lane road
to Los Angeles.

Out there in the barren desert,
Siegel told his associates,

they could open a place that
would be beyond the city limits

and the reach
of the city slot tax.

There was space enough
for a full-fledged resort...

An upscale joint with a casino
and a swimming pool

and a parking lot.

Two sprawling motor inns,
the El Rancho Vegas

and the Last Frontier,

had already been built
on that model,

and so far, they'd been doing
a respectable business.

Now, Siegel's longtime
acquaintance Billy Wilkerson,

the publisher
of the "Hollywood Reporter,"

was trying to raise money
for a third...

A glamorous place

like the nightclubs he own
on the Sunset Strip.

Ben Siegel then wound up
looking at Vegas.

And he said, "The war is over."

It's 1945 and '46.

America wants to party.

Got to remember the country had
been through a horrendous war.

America was looking
for a good time.

He said, "Let's invest money."

Siegel's associates
ponied up 1.5 million...

Enough to buy a two-thirds stake
In Wilkerson’s project.

The plan now, Siegel told a reporter, was.

To build "the goddamn biggest,
fanciest gaming casino and hotel

you bastards ever seen
in your whole lives."

He would call it "The Flamingo."

Before Benny Siegel
opened the Flamingo,

the look of the casinos
in Las Vegas

were all cowboy casinos.

They were western...
There was sawdust on the floor.

Benny Siegel comes in,

he creates
an urban Miami Beach hotel

in the middle of the desert.

Suddenly when you walk
into a casino,

you're not met by a guy
with a cowboy hat

and a six-shooter
and cowboy chaps;

no, you're met
by a guy in a tuxedo,

you're met by a guy
that looks like Dean Martin.

With its swank atmosphere,
wall-to-wall carpeting

and a newfangled
air-cooling system,

the Flamingo would
eventually become

a favorite hot spot
for the Hollywood crowd.

But by the time construction
was finally completed

in the spring of 1947,

Siegel had overrun his budget
by $4½ million,

and the syndicate's mood
had soured.

A few months later,
Siegel was gunned down

in his girlfriend's
Beverly Hills home

and Lansky's deputies
took over the Flamingo

for the syndicate.

By then,
the word on Las Vegas was out,

and wise guys
from all over the country

had already begun
decamping to the desert:

from Phoenix, syndicate
bookmaker Gus Greenbaum,

from Minneapolis, local mob boss
and rumrunner Davie Bean

and from Cleveland,
the one-time kingpin

of the Mayfield Road Gang,
Moe Dalitz.

When these guys came here,

it was like a morality
or ethical car wash.

You came here,
you were cleansed of your sins,

you were now
legitimate and legal.

I didn't care what you did,
you got a wash.

Las Vegas of 50 years ago was
an island, a desert island,

an outpost
of hedonistic excess, of vice.

Everywhere else in America,
every four years

when the district attorney
needed to get reelected,

he busted the gambling dens.

But here is this island

where bad could become good,

where illegitimate
could become legitimate.

They came out here
and the shackles came off.

They could do in the sunshine

what they could only do in
the shade where they came from.

And they said to themselves...
I know they said it...

"This is a place
to make our home.

This is a place
to raise our families."

As one resident put it,
Las Vegas was now home

"to more socially prominent
hoodlums per square foot

than any other community
in the world."

It was also fast becoming the
ideal front for organized crime,

as new casinos, like the
Thunderbird and the Desert Inn,

sprouted up on Highway 91

and the cash from the skim
found its way

into the pockets of mobsters

as far away
as Chicago and Miami.

Nevada authorities
could do little about it.

Gambling was so stigmatized
and was so morally impure

that the only way
you could finance this

was with illegal funds.

So the gambling interests
and the mob interests

were intertwined
with the establishment.

Everybody from the PTA to
the Mormons to the businessmen,

they saw nothing,
they heard nothing,

and they did nothing...
The money was rolling in.

For Nevada,
it was a devil's bargain:

Were it not
for its shady citizens,

Las Vegas may well have shrunk
back into the desert.

But a thriving gambling town
run by reputed mobsters

was not likely
to earn much respect

in the centers
of national power.

The question now was

not if Washington would
come calling, but when.

A lot of people who settled here

had a real frontier reality.

So that attitude
of "Don't regulate me,

"don't tell me what to do,
don't fence me in,

especially if you're the Federal
Government, still prevails today.,"

When we first moved here,

you could ride out my backdoor
and ride 500 miles north

and only cross two paved roads.

You used to feel like
it was pretty wide open.

You knew your neighbors...
Everybody talked to each other.

The kids were always out hunting
rabbits, hunting coyotes.

They would ride clear back
to Sheep Mountain...

And there are some old
Indian caves back there...

And they'd spend the day
and then come home.

You didn't have to worry
about where they were

or who they were with

because you knew everybody
in the neighborhood.

There was only 20 families
in the five-mile area.

It was a rural way of life,

and we're trying
to maintain that

in this little block right here.

But they're slowing
chipping away.

If they would have had
some kind of planned growth

this could have been
a good thing.

But when you run out of water
and you run out of usable land

and you start
crowding people together

just for the sole purpose
of making an extra buck

instead of trying to develop
a quality of life

or a type of life
that people want,

then it becomes something
entirely different.

More and more of my neighbors
are moving.

More and more people are putting
their houses up for sale.

Vegas has changed.

The nation's underworld

gets the unwelcome spotlight
of publicity

as the Senate's investigation
subcommittee begins

new hearings on crime.

For the men who ran Las Vegas,

periodic scrapes with the law
were a fact of life.

So none
were particularly alarmed

when, in the spring of 1950,

the U.S. Senate launched
a major investigation

into organized crime.

Word had it that the Senate
committee was slated

to take testimony
from some 800 witnesses

in 14 American cities.

Not surprisingly, Las Vegas
was high on the list.

As the more seasoned players
in town saw it,

there were a variety
of possible outcomes.

The Senate hearings could force

greater regulation
of the casinos

or increase taxes
on their profits

or even... God forbid...
Actually shut Las Vegas down.

But many took comfort
from the fact

that the probe was being headed

by none other
than Estes Kefauver,

a man whose regular
tirades against gambling,

didn't keep him from chalking up

near-perfect attendance
at the racetrack.

The Kefauver crime committee
meets the press in Washington.

Organized crime does operate
on a syndicated basis

across state lines
in the United States.

It's a much bigger,
more sinister

and a larger operation
than we had ever suspected.

Kefauver was a senator
from Tennessee,

a Democrat from the Bible Belt.

He was an opportunist,

and he saw bashing Vegas
and attacking the mob

as a way to perhaps get the
Democratic nomination in 195

Throughout the summer
and early fall,

the publicity surrounding the
nationally televised proceedings

forced the closure
of illegal gambling dens

and other mob-run enterprises
across the country.

Las Vegans, meanwhile, awaited
their turn with amusement.

As one mobster's daughter
remembered it,

"Privately, my father
and his friends joked

"that the committee
would never shut them down.

"They'd never had
any respect for politicians

since they had made
a career of bribing them."

Some in town even saw fit

to lay odds on the outcome
of the hearings.

Almost no one put
their money on Kefauver.

The Senate committee spent hours
taking testimony

from local witnesses

and uncovered no hard evidence
of wrongdoing whatsoever.

The casinos in town were legal

and the operators had
the full sanction of the state.

In the end,
the entire hearing came off

as an advertisement

for America's unofficial
mobster metropolis.

His intention was to drive
these scoundrels underground,

to put a little light on them
and watch them scatter.

Well, some of them did scatter:

They scattered from the east
and from the south, uh,

and they came out to Las Vegas.

He created a gangster diaspora.

All of a sudden,
gangsters, illegal gamblers

from bingo parlors
and roulette dens-

they had nowhere to go,
they're feeling the heat.

Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel
had already gotten

a foothold here.

Moe Dalitz was already here,

and they said, You know what?
We're going to Las Vegas."

So really it was
the organized drive

to push gambling
t of American life

that created the biggest
gambling center in the world.

"I love that man Kefauver,"
cracked one recent arrival.

"When he drove me out

"of an illegal casino operation
in Florida

"and into a legalized
operation in Nevada,

"he made me a respectable,
law-abiding citizen

and a millionaire."

Las Vegas had managed to survive

the federal
government's scrutiny,

but it still needed to make
its mix of sin

and syndicated crime
appealing to Main Street, U.S.A.

Las Vegas has been
a place apart,

it's been other,
it's been outlaw.

And it actually fought
against that image,

that reputation initially,
trying to sell itself

as "We're just
like everyone else,

and, boy, don't we have a lot
of chapels and churches?"

But this has always been
crossroader country.

I was in music for 25 years.

My famil.. I'm one of ten,

and my family was
in show business.

We were
the Louisiana Family Band.

I remember I was really young

and we used to travel
all the time.

We didn't even go to school.

We would perform
six nights a week.

And we lived in hotels.

It was the way I grew up.

And we were all together...

We would play cards in the back
of the truck

and, you know,
and we'd sing all the time,

and that's just how life was.

Always wanted a home, though.

Oh, Chenelle, look at you!

That's how we came to Vegas,
we were performing.

And then I got into cocktails.

I was schlepping cocktails
and he was valeting.

And we would meet at home.

We'd say, "Okay, we got $150."

And we had a lite bucket... I
swear to you, a little bucket.

We'd put it in and we'd
kind of cry to each other how...

it was kind of tough, you know?

So we put our money in our
bucket, and we saved up $15,000

just like that.

We just did it
one drink at a time.

So we did that
till I came home one day

and my daughter had on
my cocktail outfit.

She says, "Mommy,
I want to be just like you."

So I started real estate school
the next day.

I think this fits

We're trying to change the look

of the Las Vegas market.

A nice community park...

Obviously see the
gorgeous, incredible
mountain views there.

When was this built?

This is built in 2003, so...

We bought our first home,
it was out in the boonies.

It was 1,400 square feet.

We sold it,
we doubled our money.

The next one we did,
we quadrupled our money.

And I just kept saying,
"I know I can do this."

I see right now... I sell
million-dollar houses to people

who, ten years ago,
were just like me.

And in this community and
in this kind of environment,

it's given us that dream.

I never could have done this...
For us... any place else.

And music brought us here...
And here we are.

All right, girl!

Oh, yeah, oh, yeah, oh, yeah...

If somebody would have ever said

my daughter would go
to Our Lady of Las Vegas

or that on her birth certificate

it would say "Las Vegas,"

I never in my wildest dreams
would have thought that,

because you think it's Sin City.

When we first decided
to get off the road

and raise our baby here,

I said, "How can we live
in Las Vegas?

We're raising a little girl."

He says, "You know what?
I have a vision

"that we can have our life here

and we can be in it
but not of it."

That's it,
that's a Saturday night.

Fall of 1950...

A fierce international war

rips through a small country
called Korea.

Russia has successfully
detonated an atomic bomb.

Now more than ever before,

we need to develop and produce
a greater number

and possibly even
more powerful atomic weapons.

And like all new ideas
and weapons,

new atomic bombs
must first be tested.

But where?

Just before dawn
on January 27, 1951,

a blinding white flash
lit up the Las Vegas sky.

Minutes later, there was
a thundering blast

that left a trail
of broken glass

from Fremont Street
clear out to the Strip.

Atomic bomb testing
at the Nevada proving facility
had begun.

One, T-zero.

Over the next 12 years,
120 nuclear devices...

An average of one
every five weeks...

Would be detonated aboveground
in the Mojave Desert,

just 65 miles
from downtown Las Vegas.

"We have glorified gambling,
divorces and doubtful pleasures

to get our name before
the rest of the country,"

wrote Las Vegas Sun publisher
Hank Greenspun.

"Now we can become part

"of the most important work
carried on by our country today.

We have found a reason for
our existence as a community."

Having the atomic
testing program here

gave us a certain
amount of legitimacy.

We were prostitution,
we were gambling.

Suddenly we were helping
to win the Cold War,

and I think people
could grab a hold of that

because it was a good thing
to do for democracy.

At a moment when the word
"atomic" was cropping up

on signs all over the country,

when Boy Scouts
were laboring to earn

their "atomic energy"
merit badges

and Hollywood was putting
out films about nuclear
espionage,

Las Vegas had
the singular distinction

of being the only city
in America

with a front row seat
at ground zero.

In the hands of Las Vegas's
publicity machine,

the specter
of nuclear annihilation

now became spectacle.

The Chamber of Commerce put out
a series of press releases

promoting the explosions
as entertainment,

churned out up-to-date
shot calendars

to help tourists
schedule their trips

and distributed road maps
that highlighted

the best vantage points
around the test site.

Casinos, meanwhile,
hosted "bomb parties"

that culminated
with a predawn blast,

and offered
limousine service to guests

hoping to get as close
to ground zero as possible.

The bombs went off at dawn...
wonderful spectacle.

People would go up to the roofs

and they'd watch with glee.

It was part
of the entertainment.

It was definitely
part of a show.

If you think about
the mushroom cloud,

it's a very powerful,
very sexy, very scary concept.

And so it fits right in
with tourism.

Risk, you know, gambling
is all about risk,

so you take that mushroom cloud

and you pin it on
a beauty pageant contestant.

Or even some of the casinos
would pack picnic lunches

for you to go out
and watch the mushroom cloud.

I would have done it
if I'd been here at that time.

What could be more exciting
than that?

This is Walter Cronkite
and this is Newsmen's Nob,

some 75 miles north
of Las Vegas, Nevada.

The bomb will be exploded
from a tower 300 feet high,

and this time, some thousand
troops will be in trenches

only some two miles
from the tower

where the atomic device
goes off.

Three, two, one,

zero.

My father used to take us
as kids.

We used to go up
to Mount Charleston.

And I remember
watching these mushroom clouds.

And a number of minutes later,
these particles...

These pink particles...

Would just settle over us,
this dust.

And that was all radioactive,
you know, fallout.

We all took the government's
word that it was safe.

The government lied to us.

As the decade wore on, there
would be pockets of protest,

and in 1963,
the Limited Test Ban Treaty

would finally put an end
to the atmospheric detonations.

But for now, any misgivings
Las Vegans harbored

about the bombs
were easily brushed aside.

The town was growing.

Tourism was booming.

And every time a radioactive
cloud bloomed over the desert,

Las Vegas again made the news.

Las Vegas succeeds
because i has to.

When you deal with adversity,
you've got to be creative.

I mean, it's brittle
and it's brutal,

but if you make it, boy,
there's no stopping you.

It's a very American thing.

It's that very kind of
egalitarian notion

everybody can strike it rich.

I think that's one of the things
that's appealing...

It appeals
to that American dream.

The lovely thing about Vegas

is a dancer can have
a long life here.

The show Jubilee,
it offers job security

that you don't usually get
in shows in other places.

It's been going on for 23 years.

As long as your body is in shape
and you look good,

you can hang,
you can stay in the show.

We've got a lot of dancers

that are, you know,
in their 30s, 40s.

Our principal dancer just left
last contract;

she's 51 years old.

That's cool, because I like it;
it's nice, easy living out here.

Hi...

This is the largest production
of its kind in the country...

if not the world, I think.

It represents
all classic Las Vegas...

That's Bally's whole theme
is real, live Las Vegas.

It's sort of "classic, glamorous
Las Vegas lives."

You know, I just love the show.

I thought it was, you know,
well, a little campy,

but it's fun, you know?

It's a good show and I think
that this is...

it has everything that people
want when they come to Vegas.

You know, this is what
they're expecting.

They want feathers and the,
you know, rhinestones and...

"tits and glitz" we call it.

♪ If you're blue and you don't
know where to go to ♪

♪ Why don't you go
where fashion sits... ♪

♪ Puttin' on the Ritz. ♪

♪ ♪ ♪

♪ Strollin' down the avenue
so happy ♪

♪ All dressed up just like
an English chappy ♪

♪ Nippy, snippy ♪

♪ Come, let's mix
with Rockefellers ♪

♪ Who walk with sticks or
umber-ellas in their mitts... ♪

♪ Puttin' on the Ritz. ♪

We'll do, like, six hours
at Bally's

and usually about nine to ten
hours, sometimes, at Drai's.

I sleep for maybe
three, four hours,

and get up and do it all again.

So for the better part
of the last two years,

I've been working
seven days a week.

And people come here
and they come to party.

Especially in the after hours

they tend to get louder
and ruder and more demanding.

You're still taking it in,

you're still
being affected by it.

CUSTOMER;
Bartender!

It's definitely getting
different extremes of Vegas

with the two different jobs.

Eventually I'll have
to let go of it.

It's kind of wearing me down
a lot,

but, you know,
now I'm just hooked.

I'm just hooked on having money
in my pocket again.

I just struggled
so much in New York

that... I just don't want
to go back to that.

Do you realize
what it would mean

if anybody in Northcomb
found out

that Mr. Ernest Raff,
the president of the bank,

was in Las Vegas?

Our life has been rich and full.

You don't want
to ruin our reputation

by spending a weekend
a place like that?

No one will know
anything about it
but us.

All right... I'll
dare anything you dare.

All right, get in.

There you are.

Slide over.

Next stop, Las Vegas.

In the prosperity
of the postwar period,

that notion begins
to creep in around the edges

and then begins to seep
to the center

where people look
at each other and say,

"Maybe we could have some fun."

And, uh, everyone says, "Well,
what do you mean by fun?"

♪ If you want to have fun
in the sun out west ♪

♪ Here's what we suggest: ♪

♪ Meet... me...
in... Las Vegas. ♪

♪ Just take a tip
and pack the grip ♪

♪ And make the trip today ♪

♪ Meet me where
the people play... ♪

♪ Play in the sun ♪

♪ Meet me in Las Vegas... ♪

Las Vegas said to people,

"Look, you could come here
for a weekend, you can gamble.

"Leave your wife at home.

"Do you understand
what I mean by that?

And we'll give you
a little bit of fun."

♪ Just take a tip
and pack the grip... ♪

Las Vegas
was perfectly positioned

to cash in on the postwar
consumerist prosperity boom.

I mean, think about it:

1950's, the rise of
the national highway system,

the emergence of motoring
as a leisure activity

and money.

It's okay to have fun,
it's okay to seek leisure,

it's okay to go
on frivolous vacations

and it's okay to push the edge.

♪ It's in Nevada... ♪

♪ Nevada, U... S... A... ♪

By the mid-1950s, Las Vegas
was everywhere Americans looked.

A casual flip through any of
the country's leading magazines

and one was reminded, yet again,

that the wanton desert city
was the place to be.

At this point,
for the average tourist,

Las Vegas was not
really one city, but two.

Downtown on Fremont Street...
Lately dubbed "Glitter Gulch"...

The rugged, western feel

of the old frontier outpost
still prevailed

and joints like the Horseshoe
set the tone.

Owned and operated by Benny
Binion, convicted bootlegger

who had killed at least two men
back home in Texas,

the Horseshoe was
the only place in town

that would accept any bet
a player put on the table,

no matter how high,

and the first to ply
the clientele with free booze.

"If you wanna get rich,"
Binion liked to say,

"make little people
feel like big people."

Here was a guy
who was a bigger-than-life,

a tough-talking,
pistol-packing Texan.

But he instilled
the ethic in this city

that the customer
was number one.

It's a cliché,

but it's the cliché
that has built

the most visited place
in America.

But it was the stretch
of Highway 91

on the southern edge of town

that now most often
leapt to mind

when Americans
thought of Las Vegas.

Known as "the Strip,"

it was fast becoming
what one journalist called

"a Never-Neverland
of exotic architecture,

"that is the hearty
of this unspiritual Mecca."

Bankrolled almost entirely
by the mob,

New Strip resorts rose
up out of the scrub

with dizzying regularity:

First the Sahara and the Sands,
then the New Frontier

and the Riviera and the Dunes,

then the Tropicana
and the Stardust.

At times, the gala openings
were just weeks apart.

And by the end of the decade,

the swath of highway would be
so lit up with neon

that it was visible
from 50 miles away.

What happens is
the mob quickly realized

that it's
an enormously lucrative thing,

that there could be
many casinos.

And they also realized
that tourists,

they're going to hear
about Las Vegas

and it's going to be exotic
and romantic and glamorous.

♪ Well, all right... okay...
you win... ♪

In the quest
for tourist dollars,

no gimmick was too bizarre.

♪ Okay... you win... ♪

At the Sands,

there was an annual
Miss Atomic Bomb beauty contest.

The New Frontier installed
a glass-enclosed chamber

at the bottom
of its swimming pool,

so that guests could enjoy
their cocktails

with an underwater view.

♪ It's just got to be
that way. ♪

One publicist even toyed
with the idea

of filling a hotel pool
with Jell-O,

before a desperate
maintenance engineer

put a stop to the stunt.

Resort owners touted the Strip
as Hollywood's playground

and kept their hotels in t news

by offering the press
regular access to their stars.

♪ Well, all right ♪

♪ Okay ♪

♪ You win. ♪

And unlike the barebones
casinos on Fremont Street,

the Strip resorts lured patrons
to the tables

with an irresistible concoction
of luxury and diversion:

posh accommodations,

eternally green golf courses,

lavish midnight buffets.

But the biggest draw was
the shows.

Inspired by the Sands,
which had been the first to hire

a top-flight
entertainment director,

the new resorts poached managers

from the hottest nightclubs
on both coasts and charged them

with booking the brightest stars
in the country.

By the mid-'50s,
the Strip marquees boasted

what one reporter called

"a wider choice
of top-banana talent

than could be found
even on Broadway."

Suddenly, for the price
of cup of coffee,

visitors to Las Vegas
could catch the kind of act

they had only seen
on the silver screen.

Noel Coward is hired
to come here,

and the idea that, boy,
that place, this new place,

this upstart place can get
Noel Coward...

And Dietrich came...

and Judy Garland,

and, you know, people who were
major showbiz legends came

and had smash hits
for a lot of money.

Nowhere else in America,
not even New York,

were performers paid so well...

As much as $50,000
for a one-week stand.

The stars, in turn, plugged
their Vegas gigs

every time they appeared on TV.

The arrangement was so
mutually beneficial, in fact,

that by the mid-1950s,

the entertainment industry's
newspaper, Variety,

found it necessary

to station a full-time
correspondent in Las Vegas.

As the competition
in town mounted

and the price of star-studded
productions soar,

some resorts made skin
their headline attraction.

With each passing month,

costumes in local revues
grew skimpier,

until finally, in 1957,

the dancers at the Dunes
appeared onstage topless.

"Pretty girls sell," one
Las Vegas promoter explained.

"You need to do something
to get people's attention."

But the entertainment was
never more than a sidelight...

"a smart business hype,"
noted LIFE magazine,

"that brings
gambling patrons in."

Actress Tallulah Bankhead
put e matter more baldly:

"Darling," she once said
to a reporter,

"we're just the highest-paid
shills in history."

To the casino owners, it was
an investment well worth making.

With the odds stacked
overwhelmingly

in favor of the house,

they stood to make a fortune.

All they had to do was
get people in the door.

Some Americans, at least, proved
more than willing to be taken.

♪ I know I'd go
from rags to riches ♪

♪ If you would only say
you care. ♪

You came here,

and just by coming here
you were making a statement.

You were a little bit gamy, you
were a little bit on the edge.

And that was
a real novel concept

in American popular culture.

It was the first national
permission granted to you

to be an adult and to do things
that y might not ordinarily do

but you wanted to do,

and I think that was really
kind of the intoxicant

that drove Las Vegas.

By 1955, Las Vegas
was reeling in

an estimated seven million
visitors a year...

More than the Washington
Monument, Mount Rushmore,

Yellowstone National Park
and the Grand Canyon combined.

Few if any of them ever ventured
off the Strip,

the frenetic adult playground

that had now given Las Vegas
the moniker "Sin City."

♪ My fate is up to you... ♪

I think this notion

that Vegas is a place where the
underside of the American psyche

could express itself
a little more,

could come out from
under the rock, as it were,

has been there for a long time.

Las Vegas was created

as this place in which
sort of good people could be bad

and yet not lose any points
for doing so.

That whatever happens here
doesn't count.

I'd gamble on the way to work

and I'd gamble after work.

On my way to work,
if I wanted some money,

I wouldn't go to work.

Then I'd go home

and lie to my girlfriend
that I'd worked overtime

or my car had broke down
or something.

I was living quite a lie,
you know.

My name's Randy.

I'm a compulsive gambler.

My last bet was June 9...

the famous day.

I'm Bob,
and I'm a compulsive gambler.

My name is Chris,
I'm a compulsive gambler.

When I was out there gambling,
I was just crazy.

I mean, I would leave
my newborn son

at home with my 12-year-old
at the time

and not caring about going home,

not caring about anything.

You can't walk into a 7-Eleven

or am/pm or anyplace else
without there being slots.

The grocery stores have slots.

They ain't got them at
McDonald's or Burger King yet,

but it'll happen probably.

Yeah, I got to the point where
I was gambling my whole check

and I was borrowing from
whoever... family, whoever...

To cover my... cover my butt.

And I finally ran out of people
to borrow from,

and, uh, well, I didn't want
my fiancée to leave me,

so in a... I guess in a panic,
you could say,

I figured I had
no other alternative

other than to rob a bank.

Ran in there
and gave the lady a note

and she started
handing me money,

and I went running out of there.

I can remember saying
"excuse me"

to somebody
walking out the door.

Doesn't hurt to be
a nice bank robber.

Right w I'm waiting sentencing.

It seems that it'd be a really
scary time, which it is,

but I know that
the sentencing I'm waiting on

could not be as bad
as the sentence I was in.

Thank you very much,
my dear friends.

On behalf of Keely Smith, Sam
Butera and all the Witnesses,

it was wonderful playing
for you nice people.

We have another show
in exactly 30 minutes.

We're going to be recording
a new album

which will be called
The Sahara Swing Shift.

And you've been
a wonderful audience.

We love you for being so nice.

Thank you for coming to see us.

Beyond what one visitor called

the "fabulous,
extraordinary madhouse"

of the Strip in the 1950s,
Las Vegas was exploding.

Each year, thousands
of newcomers flocked

to the booming desert city,

first doubling, then nearly
tripling its population.

At the end of the decade, the
metropolitan area would be home

to more than 127,000 people.

Most tourists never even
glimpsed the neighborhoods

where all these
new residents lived.

They likely had no idea

that Las Vegas claimed more
houses of worship per capita,

than any other city
of equal size

or that growth had so taxed
the water distribution systems

that sewage effluent was used
to keep the golf courses green.

And certainly almost none
of the millions

who passed through Las Vegas
each year

had ever been to the West Side,

a sprawling,
squalid neighborhood

across the railroad tracks
from Fremont Street

that was home to some
15,000 African Americans.

West Las Vegas, the West Side,

was like nothing
I had ever seen before.

It was not unusual
to see cars almost bigger

than the very houses
they were parked in front of.

It was the most
segregated neighborhood

that I had ever witnessed
in my life.

It was a given
if you were African American,

you had to live west
of the railroad tracks.

The first significant numbers
of African Americans

came to Las Vegas
during World War II

to help build and work in
the Basic Magnesium factory,

a defense plant.

There were many white people
who hoped

that once World War II ended,

they would leave
and go someplace else.

But the hotel industry,
the growing strip and downtown,

created lots of low-paying jobs
for custodial labor,

room maids, waiters
and whatever.

And so, ironically, it was
the Las Vegas hotel industry

that kept
African Americans here.

Like virtually every other city
in the country,

Las Vegas was
rigidly segregated.

African Americans were relegated

to the lowliest positions
in the hotels and casinos,

and barred from patronizing
most every establishment

in Glitter Gulch
and on the Strip.

Even the black performers
who headlined in town

were shunted out
of the showrooms

when the curtain came down

and effectively exiled
to the West Side,

where dingy rooming house
accommodations

went for as much as $15 a night,

roughly 50% more than the going
rate for a room on the Strip.

SAMMY DAVIS, JR.:
♪ Must you dance...? ♪

That was the excitement
of Las Vegas.

You could go to a lounge show
for a two drink minimum,

not only see
top-notch entertainment,

but you might be sitting next
to Frank Sinatra.

Those were the kinds
of experience you could have

walking through a casino.

You never knew
who you would run into.

That was the thing
after the shows...

They went to the lounges.

But the African-American
entertainers could not do that.

But in 1955,

the color line began
to threaten gambling profits.

The trouble began
with the Moulin Rouge,

the city's first
integrated resort,

which upped the ante in town
by adding a third nightly show

and instantly siphoned off
business from the Strip.

It was a fabulous place.

That's where we used to gather,

and we were joined by a lot of
people from this side of town,

in fact, everybody was
over at the Moulin Rouge.

It was a huge success.

Every night was packed
and jammed.

Meanwhile, as the struggle
for civil rights

gained force and momentum
in the South,

African-American celebrities

began to challenge
Jim Crow in Las Vegas,

demanding rooms in the hotels
where they played

and refusing to perform

unless black people were allowed
in the audience.

♪ Hey, baby, won't you love me
or leave me...? ♪

Strip owners were over
a barrel...

They could either concede

or risk losing some
of their biggest attractions.

The desire to keep
the casino crowded

trumped the color line
nearly every time.

Then, in early 1960, the local
NAACP ratcheted up the pressure.

The NAACP called a march
on the Strip

and they notified
the Resort Hotel Association

and if they didn't want to see
it on national television,

they would open their doors.

The hotels don't want
this fight.

They don't want these headlines
all over the country.

And this town was run
by the hotels.

When they said do, it got done.

The day before
the planned protest,

at the Moulin Rouge, members
of the NAACP met with the mayor,

the governor and a group
of local businessmen.

In a matter of hours,
they had finalized an agreement

to lift the m Crow restrictions

at every hotel, restaurant, bar,
casino and showroom

in Las Vegas.

You know, in retrospect,
people will look back

and remember
how liberal they were,

but in reality back then

there were very few whites
standing up with blacks.

There were folks

who believed that blacks
were bad for business.

But the one thing

that the casino bosses
have always protected

is their bankroll.

And anything that they see
that has threatened it

uh, was... was put aside.

It would be more
than another decade

before the city
was fully desegregated,

before African Americans
could hold

the more lucrative
casino positions

or make their homes
beyond the West Side.

But the Moulin Rouge agreement,
as it would come to be known,

had underscored
an irreducible truth:

the color that mattered most
in Las Vegas

was not black or white,
but green.

People say that Las Vegas
is a town based on fantasy,

but I don't think so.

I think Las Vegas is,
in some ways,

the more honest and most
authentic place in America

because it gets us down

to what much of our
relationships are about,

in any case, which is money,

and we don't like to talk about
that out in the real world.

This is a city where
the only currency is currency.

It's a place where,
as long as you have the chips,

you are equal to everybody.

Nobody cares what your race is,

your color, your gender,
your sexual orientation.

In fact, they don't even care
if you have a criminal record.

Everybody is the same
until you're out of money.

Then when you're out
of money, you're just out.

By late 1960,

Las Vegas was so iconic that
Warner Brothers was inspired

to set a major motion picture
in town:

a rollicking saga

about a five-million-dollar
casino heist gone awry,

starring three
legendary veterans

of the Vegas
entertainment scene:

Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin
and Sammy Davis, Jr.

When shooting on the film
wrapped for the day,

the trio would make
late-night appearances,

along with their co-stars
Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford,

in the luxurious Copa Room
at the Sands.

They called their act
the "Summit."

Their fans called them
the "Rat Pack."

The show was such a hit, that it
would run on and off for years.

♪ I kissed her
and she kissed me... ♪

We went to the Sands hotel,

where every business guy
with money on the planet

was trying to get
through the door.

Every swinger
and do-da-diddy guy,

every sporting le character
on the face of the earth

was in Las Vegas, taking
every room in this small town

so they could get a seat
at the Rat Pack.

And the air
in the Sands crackled.

Something was happening.

The music was playing
on the P.A. system

of Sinatra and Dean Martin

doing "Guys and Dolls"
and things like that.

The charisma, the excitement,

the electricity in the building
in the afternoon

was beyond belief.

There is no parallel to it
today.

The lights go out.

And the announcer says, "Welcome
to the Sands Copa Room."

And then without another word,
the curtain opens

and Frank Sinatra walks out,

Dean Martin, Sammy Davis,
Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford

with no introduction.

H!

How'd everybody get in our room?

He was here a minute ago;
I'll get him...

Listen, I want to talk to you
about your drinking.

What happened? I miss a round?

No, you didn't miss a round.

I want to talk to you about
the amount that you drink.

Well, as I live and breathe,
Sammy Davis, Jr.

I'd like to thank the NAACP
for this wonderful trophy...

Will you put me down!

♪ Nothin' could be finer than
to shack up with a minor... ♪

♪ La-di-di-do... ♪

They were not nice America,
you know.

I mean, they were just sort of
the dead-end of cool,

they were the dead-end of
all that jazz scene, you know.

They were sort of the embodiment

of these big Italian ghettos
and Jewish ghettos.

I mean, they are the emblematic
creatures of this culture

and they don't, you know...
kowtow to no one.

I think people who came here

knew the mob were in control,

and Sinatra and the Rat Pack,
they sort of acted it out,

"You know what's really
going on here, don't you?"

And it was part of the glamour
for the ordinary person.

There he is, folks.

Welcome to
the Sons of Italy banquet.

They were urban
half-assed wise guys.

They played the game.

And they were very sharp
and dangerous.

They drank too much, they played
around with different women.

Everybody knew
they were cheating on wives.

This was not
a Donna Reed film festival.

These guys were bad.

Everything that Vegas promised
it would be and said it would be

really was embodied
in those handful of weeks

when the Rat Pack was here
performing every night.

What it really was,
was the pinnacle of Vegas cool.

No question that that really was

the high-water mark
of Las Vegas.

We flippantly refer to Las Vegas
now and then as Sin City,

but that's when Las Vegas
was really Sin City.

Among the scores of luminaries

who caught the Summit
in the winter of 1960

was John F. Kennedy, a young
senator from Massachusetts

who had only just recently announced
his candidacy

for president
of the United States.

Kennedy had been coming to Vegas
for years,

bewitched by its beautiful
women, its whiff of danger

and its promise
of a never-ending good time.

You son of a gun,

you got the Jewish vote.

The city, in turn, had claimed
the charismatic candidate

as its own.

But once Kennedy reached
the White House,

his administration
would turn on Las Vegas

and launch the most sustained
attack on the city

in its history.

The question then would be

whether a place made famous
as "Sin City" could survive

if it cleaned up its act.

There's more about Las Vegas
at American Experience Online.

Relive the atomic age in Nevada,

explore the growth of Las Vegas
through an interactive map

and send postcards to a friend.

American Experience
is made possible

by the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation,

to enhance public understanding
of the role of technology.

The foundation also seeks

to portray the lives
of the men and women engaged

in scientific
and technological pursuit.

At the Scotts Company, we help
make gardens more beautiful,

lawns greener, trees taller.

If there's a better business
to be in,

please... let know.

At Liberty Mutual Insurance,
we do everything we can

to help prevent accidents...

and make America a safer place.

Funding for this program

provided by the University
of Nevada, Las Vegas.

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