WEBVTT - The History of Las Vegas

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's

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<v Speaker 2>Chuck and Jerry's here too, and we're just a trio

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<v Speaker 2>of root and tutin bandits on stuff you should know.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's just get better and better.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, I wanted to nod to Las Vegas's Old West

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<v Speaker 2>I guess history. So, yeah, you know there were bandits there.

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<v Speaker 2>They used words like root and tutin. I presume, of

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<v Speaker 2>course they did. So it was that propoem in my take.

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<v Speaker 2>I agree, thanks man, I appreciate the support.

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<v Speaker 1>So early history of Las Vegas, the earliest we're starting

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<v Speaker 1>out and uh, you know with indigenous tribes, and we're

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<v Speaker 1>gonna work our way forward to what like the eighties, sure, seventies, No,

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<v Speaker 1>maybe even.

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<v Speaker 2>The early nineties, oh, late eighties, early nineties, the nineteen

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<v Speaker 2>nineties even, oh wow, all right, so we are going

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<v Speaker 2>to start at the beginning. There seems to have been

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<v Speaker 2>evidence of habitation. I saw according to PBS that dates

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<v Speaker 2>to fifteen thousand years ago, not too shabby. That's even

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<v Speaker 2>pre Clovis. There's I've also seen like about ten thousand

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<v Speaker 2>years and then the thing that drew people to Las

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<v Speaker 2>Vegas a spring, if you can believe it, that actually

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<v Speaker 2>turned the area around Las Vegas as we know it

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<v Speaker 2>now into kind of a relatively verdant area in a

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<v Speaker 2>desert that didn't erupt until eight thousand years ago. So

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<v Speaker 2>there might have been people hanging out in like rock

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<v Speaker 2>dwellings and caves around there here or there, but it

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<v Speaker 2>wasn't like a place you wanted to stay until that

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<v Speaker 2>spring came up.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Like Tiktook was wandering around saying, does anyone know

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<v Speaker 1>where Carrot Top is playing?

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<v Speaker 2>That's right, man, that guy has had a residency for

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<v Speaker 2>ten years now?

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<v Speaker 1>Is he in Vegas? I was kind of kidding.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh no, he's had a residency for ten years now.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh wow, good for him.

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<v Speaker 2>As a matter of fact, it might be more than that.

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<v Speaker 2>It might be eight thousand years that he's been there.

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<v Speaker 1>So we did promise talk of and I guess that's

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<v Speaker 1>about where we're going to pick up in with our story.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>Sure, with the new Wuvi people, which are part of

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<v Speaker 1>the Southern Paiute Native American tribe who were kind of

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<v Speaker 1>all over the place down there southern California, southern Nevada,

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<v Speaker 1>southern Utah, northern Arizona kind of in that little strip, yes,

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<v Speaker 1>and that they were there in Las Vegas, like you said,

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<v Speaker 1>largely because there was a spring there.

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<v Speaker 2>Right, And they were hunters and gatherers, and they were

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<v Speaker 2>known for their really well crafted dice.

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<v Speaker 1>We're just going to have those all over the place

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<v Speaker 1>for sure.

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<v Speaker 2>For sure. So they lived there among other people too,

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<v Speaker 2>and again they were hunter gatherers, so they I don't

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<v Speaker 2>believe they were considered permanent inhabitants of the area, but

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<v Speaker 2>they definitely lived around there, So I guess it wasn't

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<v Speaker 2>until the eighteen twenties. No, even after that. It wasn't

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<v Speaker 2>until the eighteen fifties that the area we know of

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<v Speaker 2>as Las Vegas was actually first permanently settled, and even

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<v Speaker 2>then it was temporary. If that's not enough of a

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<v Speaker 2>mind boggler.

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<v Speaker 1>For you, well, are we gonna spoil who that is

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<v Speaker 1>by two minutes?

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<v Speaker 2>Yes? I think we should, because I don't want people

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<v Speaker 2>to have to wait for that.

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<v Speaker 1>All right, Well, who is it?

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<v Speaker 2>The Mormons?

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<v Speaker 1>That's right, but pre Mormon, when it was just a

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<v Speaker 1>little spring, it did become known. It was part of

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<v Speaker 1>Mexico at the time, of course, and it became known

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<v Speaker 1>as Las Vegas de Quintana the Meadows in Spanish. And

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<v Speaker 1>in eighteen twenty nine is when it first sort of

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<v Speaker 1>started just being a thing at all, because it was

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<v Speaker 1>a stop on what was called the Old Spanish Trail,

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<v Speaker 1>which was a trade route between Las Vegas and Los Angeles,

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<v Speaker 1>with the stop in Utah on the way.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and again, the reason why you would stop there

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<v Speaker 2>is because there's running water there. That's a rarity in

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<v Speaker 2>the area. So that alone drew people from time immemorial.

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<v Speaker 2>And I think around the eighteen forty is a guy

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<v Speaker 2>named John C. Fremont showed up or Fremont, and he

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<v Speaker 2>was a surveyor, but he was like a shadester surveyor.

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<v Speaker 2>He was sent by the United States to go see

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<v Speaker 2>what the land looked like out there and maybe survey

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<v Speaker 2>for the United States. But do it surreptitiously, because again,

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<v Speaker 2>all of this area belongs to Mexico. We've just been

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<v Speaker 2>thinking about maybe taking it over.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and I want to correct myself real quick. It

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<v Speaker 1>does the Old Spanish Trail to connect Vegas to La

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<v Speaker 1>but it started in Santa Fe. So we want to

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<v Speaker 1>sell them short.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh no, not at all.

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<v Speaker 1>We love our Santa.

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<v Speaker 2>Fans, Santa fe Inian nights in.

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<v Speaker 1>The night ganders right. So the US of Mexico went

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<v Speaker 1>to war. This is something that I think we should

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<v Speaker 1>cover at some point on an episode. From eighteen forty

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<v Speaker 1>six to eighteen forty eight, Mexico lost and under the

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<v Speaker 1>Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo everything north of the Rio Grand

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<v Speaker 1>basically about half of its territory at the time, was

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<v Speaker 1>given up, and Las Vegas Decantana was in there. So

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<v Speaker 1>now the US government officially is control, is controlling of

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<v Speaker 1>what would end up being the Las Vegas we know,

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<v Speaker 1>and some of us love, some of us maybe don't

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<v Speaker 1>so much. And this was the year eighteen forty eight,

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<v Speaker 1>so that was right before the Gold Rush of forty nine,

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<v Speaker 1>so it was already a stopover because of that old

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<v Speaker 1>Spanish trail, and it was just more firmly entrenched as

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<v Speaker 1>these forty nine ers would head west looking to catch

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<v Speaker 1>a show and play little Blackjack, I guess, and spend the.

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<v Speaker 2>Night for sure. And that gold Rush of forty nine

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<v Speaker 2>is what really disrupted the pious, kind of generally peaceful

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<v Speaker 2>occupation of the area because a lot of people came

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<v Speaker 2>westward and passed through Vegas, and some even stayed and

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<v Speaker 2>decided to stick a claim there. And in eighteen fifty five,

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<v Speaker 2>like I said, the Mormons showed up. Brigham Young said

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<v Speaker 2>to William Bringhurst, get thee with thirty of thoused people

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<v Speaker 2>to thine Las Vegas area and set up a mission. Basically,

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<v Speaker 2>he's like, don't kid yourself. Let's build a fort because

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<v Speaker 2>we're not exactly sure how this is going to be received. Now, well,

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<v Speaker 2>once you've built a fort, maybe, you know, make friendly

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<v Speaker 2>contact with the Piute people, teach them how to farm,

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<v Speaker 2>and then baptize them when they're not paying attention.

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<v Speaker 1>That's right. He kind of buried the lead, didn't he. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>So while they were there, they did put up a fort,

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<v Speaker 1>they did baptize I think the number was fifty nine

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<v Speaker 1>people of you know, Piute people. And then they did

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<v Speaker 1>so thing or they found something that ended up being

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<v Speaker 1>really kind of key to why Las Vegas continued to

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<v Speaker 1>be a thing, which was or they found lead or

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<v Speaker 1>and set up a mine nearby. And as you will see,

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<v Speaker 1>mining and finding deposits of all kinds of valuable things

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<v Speaker 1>ended up being a very you know, key reason Vegas

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<v Speaker 1>became Vegas.

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<v Speaker 2>For sure. And let's imagine like having the knowledge of

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<v Speaker 2>just how to set up a mind, could you start

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<v Speaker 2>a mind today? How to scratch? I couldn't know. I'd

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<v Speaker 2>be like, I don't I don't know what I'm doing.

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<v Speaker 2>But that's what they did, and like you said, it

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<v Speaker 2>kind of created this this legacy discovery. But they they

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<v Speaker 2>ran into a problem that would be a problem for

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<v Speaker 2>much for a while longer, and that was that the

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<v Speaker 2>intensive agriculture they were trying to create was not sustainable

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<v Speaker 2>by the spring that had burst forth eight thousand years before. Yeah, yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>it was good. You could raise a little bit of crops.

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<v Speaker 2>You could definitely do some hunter gathering. You could get

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<v Speaker 2>a nice cool drink and bathe in it. But you

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<v Speaker 2>really couldn't do anything major with it. And so Brigham

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<v Speaker 2>Young said, get Thoust back to Thine Salt Lake area

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<v Speaker 2>and just bring it in. But they left that fort,

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<v Speaker 2>and that fort actually is still there today, in part

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<v Speaker 2>because a succession of people kind of came along and said,

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<v Speaker 2>this is a really handy thing to have.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, you know, there was some other

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<v Speaker 1>stuff there. There were some cabins and you know, remnants

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<v Speaker 1>of life. So, like you said, when people would pass

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<v Speaker 1>through there because it was still a stop on that

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<v Speaker 1>trade trail, people would be like, oh great, we can

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<v Speaker 1>you know, we can kind of use this stuff. And

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<v Speaker 1>that happened with a gentleman named Octavius decatur Gas who

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<v Speaker 1>was from that's two s's by the way, and he

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<v Speaker 1>was from Ohio and went to California in eighteen fifty

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<v Speaker 1>selling prefab homes, which was great timing, yeah, because you

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<v Speaker 1>know that that forty nine er gold rush boom. It

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<v Speaker 1>was just on the heels of that, and people needed

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<v Speaker 1>places to live. They're kind of getting tired of those

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<v Speaker 1>canvas tents, I guess. So he had these little prefab

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<v Speaker 1>kit houses he was selling, and I think was doing

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<v Speaker 1>pretty well for himself doing that. But then he kind

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<v Speaker 1>of noticed everything that was going on around him as

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<v Speaker 1>far as people getting rich, staking claims and mining, and

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<v Speaker 1>he was like, I want to get in on that,

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<v Speaker 1>and he staked a claim, well several even, but one

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<v Speaker 1>at Eldorado Canyon, about fifty miles away from that original

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<v Speaker 1>Mormon fort.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so I saw The Las Vegas Review Journal described

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<v Speaker 2>od Gas as the kind of guy where opportunity frequently knocked,

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<v Speaker 2>but he was always in the bathtub, And I think

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<v Speaker 2>that really kind of gets it across. This guy tried

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<v Speaker 2>a lot of stuff, but was I mean, he was

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<v Speaker 2>modestly successful, but his ambitions were never were never reached.

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<v Speaker 2>But he kind of found his way into, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>just enough success, but it would always be relatively short lived.

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<v Speaker 2>And that came as far as Las Vegas is con

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<v Speaker 2>and when he happened upon that old Mormon fort with

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<v Speaker 2>a couple of buddies that he'd made in the mining trade,

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<v Speaker 2>and they decided to give up mining for a little

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<v Speaker 2>while and take that fort and convert it into a

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<v Speaker 2>ranch to make a rest stop for travelers on their

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<v Speaker 2>way west. And this was actually a pretty smart move

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<v Speaker 2>because again there's water there. But more to the point,

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<v Speaker 2>they used some of that water to grow grape vines,

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<v Speaker 2>which they turned into wine, which is even harder to

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<v Speaker 2>find in the desert than water at this time. And

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<v Speaker 2>that made that place a must stop pit stop on

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<v Speaker 2>the way out to Los Angeles.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean you could stop there and get a drink.

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<v Speaker 1>It was like the seeds of early Las Vegas already planted.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. The thing is is it was probably red wine

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<v Speaker 2>and red wine and like the hot dry desert is

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<v Speaker 2>not a good mix.

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<v Speaker 1>No, it certainly as we know, you know how American

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<v Speaker 1>wine has grown. Now, it's not an ideal place to

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<v Speaker 1>grow wine. But back then I think it was like, okay,

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<v Speaker 1>we can grow some grapes that will get you.

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<v Speaker 2>Drunk, right. I think that was the point, which is

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<v Speaker 2>very vegacy.

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<v Speaker 1>It's very vegacy. So things start to accumulate there, as

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<v Speaker 1>in people and just you know, minors, people kind of

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<v Speaker 1>growing the town around him. He obviously is the I

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<v Speaker 1>guess sort of founder. Sorry bring him young. Was enjoying power.

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<v Speaker 1>You know, he was the first guy there to set

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<v Speaker 1>up stakes for real, and so he ended up having

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<v Speaker 1>like influence and power. And when the US government said,

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<v Speaker 1>you know what we want to do here is we

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<v Speaker 1>want to actually redraw these lines and these territory lines,

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<v Speaker 1>and we want to actually scoot Nevada over to where

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<v Speaker 1>this weird Vegas ranches encompass within Nevada, he was like, no,

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<v Speaker 1>like this is Arizona. I'm really upset by this, to

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<v Speaker 1>the point where he e he even tried to like

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<v Speaker 1>clip off the point of Lincoln count to make a

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<v Speaker 1>Las Vegas County, and he wasn't able to because he

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<v Speaker 1>had all of a sudden, a bunch of Nevadens, well

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<v Speaker 1>they weren't state Nevadens yet, but Nevada territorians removed from

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<v Speaker 1>his constituency. So he was sort of left with no sway. No.

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<v Speaker 2>I mean, it's tough to be a politician when you're

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<v Speaker 2>not actually representing anybody, because they all moved because they

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<v Speaker 2>didn't want to pay the new Nevada taxes. So his

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<v Speaker 2>political life kind of petered out. Apparently he was slapped

0:12:29.679 --> 0:12:32.280
<v Speaker 2>with a two year tax bill too, and I couldn't

0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.560
<v Speaker 2>find whether he actually paid it or not. From what

0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.480
<v Speaker 2>I can tell about him, he probably didn't. But he

0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:43.120
<v Speaker 2>set about reinvesting himself into the ranch. He got married,

0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:45.400
<v Speaker 2>had a couple of kids, raised them on the ranch too,

0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:50.000
<v Speaker 2>and his wife Mary, by the way, the Paiute people

0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.160
<v Speaker 2>who worked for them called her long Eye because apparently

0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:56.720
<v Speaker 2>she was a crack rifle shot. So they're kind of

0:12:56.760 --> 0:13:00.200
<v Speaker 2>farming doing the ranch thing, making their way. And I

0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:02.840
<v Speaker 2>guess he had borrowed about five thousand dollars from a

0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.880
<v Speaker 2>guy named Archibald Stuart. He basically mortgaged his ranch for

0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:11.640
<v Speaker 2>five grand and he's planning on paying it back with

0:13:11.920 --> 0:13:15.600
<v Speaker 2>a bumper crop that he was expecting of pink beans,

0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.280
<v Speaker 2>which are delicacy in the area. I can't remember what

0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:21.000
<v Speaker 2>else he grew, making wine, all that stuff, And apparently

0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:24.240
<v Speaker 2>it was a freak weather. There's this terrible weather that

0:13:24.320 --> 0:13:27.040
<v Speaker 2>year and his crop got wiped out, and so he

0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.960
<v Speaker 2>was forced to basically hand over the ranch to Archibald Stuart,

0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:33.959
<v Speaker 2>and he and his wife and kids moved to Pomona.

0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, what a great place to end up. Sure, I

0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:38.760
<v Speaker 1>love Pomona.

0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:39.559
<v Speaker 2>I've never been.

0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.920
<v Speaker 1>I've just been once. I one saw the Shins play

0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:47.760
<v Speaker 1>a show in Pomona. Oh wow, what a story. Yeah.

0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:49.679
<v Speaker 1>The only thing I remember about that show is Emily

0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:52.080
<v Speaker 1>and I were really bugged because the crowd was young

0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.000
<v Speaker 1>and they weren't like getting into it. You're like, what's

0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:56.520
<v Speaker 1>going on here? This is like a great show.

0:13:56.600 --> 0:13:58.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, how would you end up at that show if

0:13:58.559 --> 0:13:59.920
<v Speaker 2>you weren't into the Shins?

0:14:00.320 --> 0:14:03.160
<v Speaker 1>I don't know. Or maybe they were just just trying

0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:03.680
<v Speaker 1>to play cool.

0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.840
<v Speaker 2>They were like, play that song from gardens toat Oh God.

0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.440
<v Speaker 1>So in the meantime, things are really booming just in

0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:13.920
<v Speaker 1>that area of Eldorado Canyon as far as mining goes,

0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.840
<v Speaker 1>Like copper and lead and gold and silver and everything.

0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:20.800
<v Speaker 1>Like people are getting rich out there, it gets a

0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:24.160
<v Speaker 1>little rowdy, of course, whenever you know miners are sticking

0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:26.200
<v Speaker 1>claims and making a whole lot of money, there's going

0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.800
<v Speaker 1>to be some lawlessness. But it was a good place

0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:32.280
<v Speaker 1>to be if you wanted to mine, if you didn't

0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.240
<v Speaker 1>mind the heat so much. The one problem was they

0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.560
<v Speaker 1>didn't have a railroad yeah to get that stuff places.

0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:42.160
<v Speaker 1>So their only really route was to use these armed

0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.800
<v Speaker 1>freight wagons, which were slow and expensive. And they were like,

0:14:45.880 --> 0:14:46.760
<v Speaker 1>we need a.

0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:52.240
<v Speaker 2>Railroad, yeah, And the railroad had already been established by

0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.160
<v Speaker 2>eighteen sixty nine, it just wasn't in Las Vegas because

0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.280
<v Speaker 2>it was still just kind of a dusty wagon trail town.

0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.400
<v Speaker 2>Now it was rich and it needed help getting those

0:15:03.480 --> 0:15:07.160
<v Speaker 2>riches out of Las Vegas. So the railroads were like, oh, okay,

0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.239
<v Speaker 2>we'll come over there, and so they started building a railroad.

0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.960
<v Speaker 2>There was a reason why Las Vegas got a railroad,

0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:17.000
<v Speaker 2>and it was actually two dudes, two very wealthy dudes,

0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.960
<v Speaker 2>butting heads, trying to get control over the railroad in

0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.760
<v Speaker 2>that area. And I say, we tell their story when

0:15:22.760 --> 0:15:23.840
<v Speaker 2>we come back from a break.

0:15:24.520 --> 0:15:56.560
<v Speaker 1>Let's do it learn and stuff with Joshua John stuff.

0:15:56.600 --> 0:16:03.280
<v Speaker 1>You shut up, all right. So this is the story

0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.280
<v Speaker 1>of a sort of a brief little railroad war. That's

0:16:07.400 --> 0:16:09.520
<v Speaker 1>hard to say, so I'm not going to say it again.

0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:14.320
<v Speaker 1>One guy was William Clark. He was a copper tycoon

0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:18.760
<v Speaker 1>from Montana, was also in northern politics. And the other

0:16:18.800 --> 0:16:22.240
<v Speaker 1>guy was a guy named E. H. Harriman, and he

0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:25.920
<v Speaker 1>was the head of the Union Pacific Railroad. He was

0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:29.680
<v Speaker 1>looking for a connection to California. He was shut out

0:16:29.720 --> 0:16:33.320
<v Speaker 1>of San Francisco, so he looked south toward Los Angeles.

0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.600
<v Speaker 1>Clark wanted to get in on this mining boom, and

0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:39.800
<v Speaker 1>he said, well, I think we should have a train

0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.640
<v Speaker 1>there as well, so we can connect this Salt Lake

0:16:42.680 --> 0:16:45.000
<v Speaker 1>city to Los Angeles. It can go sort of that

0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:47.920
<v Speaker 1>old Spanish trade route actually, and it can go right

0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.000
<v Speaker 1>here through Las Vegas and I can use it and

0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:53.440
<v Speaker 1>it'll be great. He bought a small railroad that ended

0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:56.480
<v Speaker 1>in la and started to build a connection. When he

0:16:56.560 --> 0:16:58.640
<v Speaker 1>and Harriman started butting.

0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:02.400
<v Speaker 2>Heads, right turned out they finally managed to come to

0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:06.800
<v Speaker 2>terms with one another. Because William Clark was really interested

0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:11.640
<v Speaker 2>in Vegas and building a town out of Vegas. Whereas

0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.520
<v Speaker 2>Harriman was more interested in the actual railroad. So I

0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.840
<v Speaker 2>guess Clark sold his interest to Harriman and started focusing

0:17:18.880 --> 0:17:23.320
<v Speaker 2>on building a town around this new railroad line through Vegas.

0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:27.520
<v Speaker 2>And what's interesting is William Clark, he was extraordinarily rich,

0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.960
<v Speaker 2>but his competition in staking and laying out a town

0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:36.240
<v Speaker 2>in Las Vegas was an African American land surveyor named J. T.

0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:41.479
<v Speaker 2>McWilliams who had heard that William Clark was going to

0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:44.000
<v Speaker 2>build this railroad through Las Vegas and started buying up

0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:47.920
<v Speaker 2>land around I think the west side of the railroad,

0:17:48.480 --> 0:17:52.119
<v Speaker 2>and he started building a town there. And there were

0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:54.720
<v Speaker 2>two towns on Vegas on the west side of the tracks,

0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:56.200
<v Speaker 2>on the east side of the tracks. The east side

0:17:56.240 --> 0:18:00.960
<v Speaker 2>was Clark's and the west side was McWilliams, And those

0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:04.600
<v Speaker 2>were like the rival towns when Vegas was first established,

0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:07.000
<v Speaker 2>I believe, starting around nineteen oh five.

0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.360
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, super interesting little side story there, I love it.

0:18:11.480 --> 0:18:15.040
<v Speaker 1>Thanks much forgotten to history, I think. So in nineteen

0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.160
<v Speaker 1>oh three, he Clark, that is, purchased that ranch Las

0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:22.960
<v Speaker 1>Vegas Rancho and that spring from Helen Stewart, who was

0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:28.240
<v Speaker 1>the widow of the gentleman who had foreclosed on what's

0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:34.320
<v Speaker 1>his name, Bass cas or Gods Gots, so he owned

0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:37.000
<v Speaker 1>all this land. Now he subdivided it up into about

0:18:37.040 --> 0:18:43.120
<v Speaker 1>twelve hundred lots, started auctioning them off in May nineteen

0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:44.960
<v Speaker 1>or sort of late nineteen oh four, and then in

0:18:44.960 --> 0:18:47.800
<v Speaker 1>spring nineteen oh five people started building there. And it

0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.760
<v Speaker 1>was like people were paying pretty good money for these

0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:55.120
<v Speaker 1>lots back then, considering you know where it was. And

0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:59.160
<v Speaker 1>because all of this, Clark County is named after William Clark.

0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:03.199
<v Speaker 2>To day, that's really funny because Mark Twain called William

0:19:03.200 --> 0:19:07.040
<v Speaker 2>Clark like basically the worst human being alive. He had

0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:11.359
<v Speaker 2>bribed the Montana legislature to make him a senator. And

0:19:11.400 --> 0:19:14.960
<v Speaker 2>we actually have the seventeenth Amendment to the Constitution, which

0:19:15.040 --> 0:19:18.280
<v Speaker 2>says that senators are directly elected rather than appointed by

0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.560
<v Speaker 2>state legislators like they used to because of William Clark.

0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.280
<v Speaker 2>And I didn't realize that they named the county after him.

0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:27.639
<v Speaker 1>That's interesting, right, So I'm sure everyone's like, when are

0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:30.440
<v Speaker 1>you guys going to start talking about gambling and casinos?

0:19:30.480 --> 0:19:31.760
<v Speaker 2>Just give us like twenty minutes.

0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:38.320
<v Speaker 1>No, we're there. So gambling in Vegas, just like much

0:19:38.359 --> 0:19:42.080
<v Speaker 1>of the United States was a thing like people have

0:19:42.280 --> 0:19:45.280
<v Speaker 1>gambled off and on in the United States since there's

0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.160
<v Speaker 1>been a thing. They weren't necessarily casinos, but people would

0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:50.720
<v Speaker 1>play cards, they would play dice, they would play poker,

0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.159
<v Speaker 1>all the kind of like good old fashioned, you know,

0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.960
<v Speaker 1>person to person gambling games. In eighteen sixty one, this

0:19:57.000 --> 0:20:01.399
<v Speaker 1>is a few years before statehood, so this is in

0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:04.600
<v Speaker 1>eighteen sixty one, the governor said, gambling is a felony.

0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:08.480
<v Speaker 1>You can't do it here. You can't do it. Apparently

0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.439
<v Speaker 1>there was what they call the progressive movement at the

0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.959
<v Speaker 1>time that wanted to get rid of all kinds of

0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:17.280
<v Speaker 1>vices like that. And then eighteen sixty nine, after they

0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:20.959
<v Speaker 1>got their statehood about five years later, they legalized it

0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.840
<v Speaker 1>for geeze about forty years, but then reverse that made

0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.880
<v Speaker 1>it illegal again in nineteen oh nine. Sure, but in

0:20:27.960 --> 0:20:31.399
<v Speaker 1>that time after nineteen oh nine that it was illegal,

0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:34.919
<v Speaker 1>they said like, hey, listen, you can have your poker games,

0:20:35.119 --> 0:20:37.919
<v Speaker 1>you can have your dice games, you can gamble against

0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.639
<v Speaker 1>other people and stuff like that, but what you can't

0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.680
<v Speaker 1>do is what's called wide open gambling, which is gambling

0:20:43.760 --> 0:20:46.040
<v Speaker 1>against the house as the bank. Right.

0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:50.160
<v Speaker 2>Then they reversed that too in nineteen thirty one, thanks

0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.919
<v Speaker 2>to the depression and the local minds kind of falling

0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.960
<v Speaker 2>on hard times, they Las Vegas or I guess Nevada

0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.879
<v Speaker 2>passed what's called the Eide Open Gambling Bill, that's what

0:21:01.920 --> 0:21:04.800
<v Speaker 2>they called it, and they said, yeah, you can have

0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:07.920
<v Speaker 2>a you can become a licensed gambling establishment, and we're

0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.080
<v Speaker 2>going to regulate you and tax the heck out of you.

0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:14.320
<v Speaker 2>But you can gamble. Now, what's funny is the Nevada

0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:16.760
<v Speaker 2>still doesn't have a lottery. Like they said, yes you

0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.080
<v Speaker 2>can gamble, No, you can't have a lottery. And I

0:21:19.080 --> 0:21:21.760
<v Speaker 2>think at first it was to protect locals. They started

0:21:22.480 --> 0:21:26.440
<v Speaker 2>they legalized gambling to pull tourists in even from the outset.

0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:32.880
<v Speaker 2>And then now I think the gaming companies that run

0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.840
<v Speaker 2>the casinos in Vegas or they just opposed a lottery

0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:39.040
<v Speaker 2>anytime it comes up because they don't want to even

0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:40.080
<v Speaker 2>have that as competition.

0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:45.280
<v Speaker 1>Like that five dollars that you spend on a scratch off,

0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:47.280
<v Speaker 1>we want you to put that into our slot machine.

0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:49.159
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, you could be doing that. You can put it

0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:51.119
<v Speaker 2>on roulette, whatever you want to do, as long as

0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:52.440
<v Speaker 2>you're betting it with us.

0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.639
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I could totally see that. So they're fighting the

0:21:55.680 --> 0:22:00.119
<v Speaker 1>depression in nineteen thirty one by legalizing gambling. Construction the

0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.000
<v Speaker 1>Hoover Dam started that same year, and all of a

0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:05.280
<v Speaker 1>sudden you had people nearby that had a little money

0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:10.520
<v Speaker 1>in their pocket, which was they were, I guess happy

0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:12.879
<v Speaker 1>to go over to what was you know, sort of

0:22:12.920 --> 0:22:16.360
<v Speaker 1>the first area of Vegas to feature casinos was Fremont

0:22:16.400 --> 0:22:21.560
<v Speaker 1>Street and things started happening there was there's actually one

0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.120
<v Speaker 1>of those casinos that opened in nineteen oh six called

0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:27.639
<v Speaker 1>the Golden Gate is still in Las Vegas. Yeah, that

0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:29.720
<v Speaker 1>I'd looked up pictures. I've never been inside it, but

0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:31.919
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna check it out next time im in Vegas.

0:22:31.920 --> 0:22:33.840
<v Speaker 1>It looks super cool in old school.

0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.360
<v Speaker 2>It's on the Fremont Street experience.

0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.320
<v Speaker 1>Right, I have no idea I think it is. So.

0:22:39.880 --> 0:22:43.160
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if anyone has been to Vegas recently,

0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:47.120
<v Speaker 2>but in the nineties they closed off a six block

0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:49.200
<v Speaker 2>stretch of Fremont Street that has a lot of these

0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:53.199
<v Speaker 2>original casinos and hotels on them and made it just

0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:57.040
<v Speaker 2>pedestrian only, and then they covered it with a light

0:22:57.119 --> 0:23:00.840
<v Speaker 2>show roof that has forty nine million led lights across it.

0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:01.800
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:07.000
<v Speaker 2>And so it's it's it's whatever that weird non time

0:23:07.160 --> 0:23:11.359
<v Speaker 2>of day is that they always is indoors in Vegas.

0:23:11.400 --> 0:23:14.200
<v Speaker 2>They managed to do that on a six block stretch

0:23:14.240 --> 0:23:17.560
<v Speaker 2>of street. So it's really something that's called the Fremont

0:23:17.600 --> 0:23:22.679
<v Speaker 2>Street experience. And these first casinos and resorts that's what that's.

0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:24.920
<v Speaker 2>That was them and some of them are still there.

0:23:24.960 --> 0:23:26.760
<v Speaker 2>Like you said, the Golden Gate or the Yeah, the

0:23:26.760 --> 0:23:28.159
<v Speaker 2>Golden Gate is it?

0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:30.640
<v Speaker 1>Uh? Is it awesome to like walk under that thing?

0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:34.000
<v Speaker 2>It's pretty cool. It's cool. It's got a lot of

0:23:34.440 --> 0:23:39.040
<v Speaker 2>street performers like Man's Chinese Theater, Times Square, but then

0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:41.960
<v Speaker 2>it has a lot of history that Neon Museums there,

0:23:41.960 --> 0:23:44.800
<v Speaker 2>the mob museums there. Like it's it's pretty well done,

0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:47.919
<v Speaker 2>to tell you the truth. Vegas vic that like fifty

0:23:47.960 --> 0:23:52.800
<v Speaker 2>foot tall cowboy that is so iconic from Vegas from

0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:57.200
<v Speaker 2>the Pioneer Club. Oh he's there. Yeah, it's pretty neat.

0:23:57.440 --> 0:23:59.040
<v Speaker 1>All right, I'll check it out, but just.

0:23:59.000 --> 0:24:00.760
<v Speaker 2>Be where you could. I'm going to make a case

0:24:00.800 --> 0:24:02.280
<v Speaker 2>it's a bit of a tourist trap.

0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:07.240
<v Speaker 1>So we recommend are we recommending it officially?

0:24:07.400 --> 0:24:07.760
<v Speaker 2>Yes?

0:24:08.200 --> 0:24:10.199
<v Speaker 1>All right, go to meol Well first and then go

0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:10.399
<v Speaker 1>to that.

0:24:10.560 --> 0:24:12.200
<v Speaker 2>Okay, all right.

0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:14.720
<v Speaker 1>So this was again the nineteen thirties, so there was

0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:17.879
<v Speaker 1>illegal gambling going on all over Los Angeles at the time,

0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:21.880
<v Speaker 1>and they were like, hey, Vegas is not that far.

0:24:22.640 --> 0:24:25.840
<v Speaker 1>Pretty soon there'll be a very cheap and quick Southwest

0:24:25.880 --> 0:24:28.640
<v Speaker 1>Airlines flight that goes there four hundred times a day.

0:24:29.560 --> 0:24:31.840
<v Speaker 1>But now we can make that drive at least through

0:24:31.840 --> 0:24:36.160
<v Speaker 1>the desert, just like Vince Vaughn did, and swingers and

0:24:36.680 --> 0:24:39.679
<v Speaker 1>gamble our little hearts away. And one of those guys

0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:43.280
<v Speaker 1>was well, he was a guy. His name was Guy.

0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:48.200
<v Speaker 1>His name was Guy McAfee, and he was the commander

0:24:48.240 --> 0:24:51.479
<v Speaker 1>of the LAPD Vice Squad, which is to say, at

0:24:51.520 --> 0:24:55.600
<v Speaker 1>the time he was probably dirty and crooked because he

0:24:55.720 --> 0:24:57.680
<v Speaker 1>was swept out along with a lot of the corruption

0:24:57.760 --> 0:24:59.800
<v Speaker 1>in the early nineteen thirties and the LAPD one of

0:24:59.840 --> 0:25:04.439
<v Speaker 1>their one of the first runs at making the LAPD

0:25:05.320 --> 0:25:08.280
<v Speaker 1>straight and narrow. I guess, like, I'm not banging on them.

0:25:08.280 --> 0:25:11.560
<v Speaker 1>I think they have a rich history of corruption, right.

0:25:12.240 --> 0:25:14.320
<v Speaker 1>I just didn't want to sound too harsh, but we

0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:16.840
<v Speaker 1>all know that we've seen the movies. Sure, But he

0:25:16.920 --> 0:25:20.119
<v Speaker 1>was known as the Captain and he was at the

0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:23.359
<v Speaker 1>time in La married to a madam, a Hollywood madam

0:25:23.800 --> 0:25:27.480
<v Speaker 1>who ran a string of gambling houses. They were all

0:25:27.480 --> 0:25:30.720
<v Speaker 1>connected to the Mob, of course, and the riding was

0:25:30.760 --> 0:25:32.320
<v Speaker 1>on the wall that he needed to get the heck

0:25:32.359 --> 0:25:36.320
<v Speaker 1>out of Dodge, which was La and he said, Vegas

0:25:36.320 --> 0:25:38.280
<v Speaker 1>seems like kind of the perfect landing spot for me.

0:25:38.760 --> 0:25:41.320
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, And so he showed up and bought the Golden Nugget.

0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:44.200
<v Speaker 2>He bought another place called the Pair o Dice Club,

0:25:44.520 --> 0:25:47.440
<v Speaker 2>which I read that five times before I got it.

0:25:47.600 --> 0:25:50.960
<v Speaker 2>The Paradise Club. Oh, well, I got it, you got

0:25:50.960 --> 0:25:51.199
<v Speaker 2>it now.

0:25:52.040 --> 0:25:53.040
<v Speaker 1>I didn't get it the first one.

0:25:53.080 --> 0:25:54.520
<v Speaker 2>Okay, good, I'm glad it wasn't just me.

0:25:54.680 --> 0:25:57.200
<v Speaker 1>I thought you were just confused by a pair of dice.

0:25:57.440 --> 0:25:59.679
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no, no, it was the point I didn't get.

0:25:59.800 --> 0:26:01.000
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it now.

0:26:01.760 --> 0:26:04.080
<v Speaker 2>And the reason why I finally got it is because

0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:08.000
<v Speaker 2>he set up an area outside of Las Vegas city

0:26:08.040 --> 0:26:11.679
<v Speaker 2>limits that he named Paradise Paradise, Nevada. It's technically not

0:26:11.840 --> 0:26:15.719
<v Speaker 2>a town, it's unincorporated Clark County, but he named it

0:26:15.760 --> 0:26:19.960
<v Speaker 2>after his club, Paro Dice. But he called this area Paradise.

0:26:20.359 --> 0:26:22.879
<v Speaker 2>And this is the strip, This is the Las Vegas

0:26:22.880 --> 0:26:28.320
<v Speaker 2>Strip still today, everything from the Bellaggio, the Venetian, the

0:26:28.400 --> 0:26:33.560
<v Speaker 2>Win the Cosmopolitan, the Staybridge Suites. All of them are

0:26:33.600 --> 0:26:37.480
<v Speaker 2>actually outside of Las Vegas city limits in this unincorporated

0:26:37.520 --> 0:26:40.520
<v Speaker 2>part of Clark County called Paradise that was set up

0:26:40.560 --> 0:26:44.560
<v Speaker 2>in the nineteen thirties by a corrupt LAPD Vice squad

0:26:44.640 --> 0:26:46.600
<v Speaker 2>commander named Guy McAfee.

0:26:47.960 --> 0:26:51.479
<v Speaker 1>Nice subnation, thanks. So this is where I mean they

0:26:51.520 --> 0:26:53.120
<v Speaker 1>called it the Strip then, and this is where things

0:26:53.160 --> 0:26:58.000
<v Speaker 1>really started to boom all this development began. Mind you,

0:26:58.040 --> 0:27:01.119
<v Speaker 1>this was still in the nineteen four so they were

0:27:01.119 --> 0:27:05.159
<v Speaker 1>still sort of the ranch style, low lying, not you know,

0:27:05.200 --> 0:27:07.560
<v Speaker 1>these big high rises that would come later on. We'll

0:27:07.600 --> 0:27:08.000
<v Speaker 1>get to that.

0:27:08.240 --> 0:27:10.879
<v Speaker 2>They were like s kicker casino resorts.

0:27:11.320 --> 0:27:14.720
<v Speaker 1>Oh totally. I think everyone knows what you mean, right, Yeah, I.

0:27:14.640 --> 0:27:20.479
<v Speaker 2>Think so, you know, kicking what I said, what I

0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:22.520
<v Speaker 2>was gonna say, I'm just kidding.

0:27:23.040 --> 0:27:26.120
<v Speaker 1>So there was a hotel here from California named Thomas Hall.

0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:30.280
<v Speaker 1>He opened the first sort of all self contained in

0:27:30.320 --> 0:27:34.800
<v Speaker 1>and of itself luxury casino resort in nineteen forty one

0:27:34.880 --> 0:27:38.880
<v Speaker 1>called l Rancho Vegas, named after he had other properties

0:27:38.920 --> 0:27:42.520
<v Speaker 1>name named Rancho. As the story goes, his car broke

0:27:42.560 --> 0:27:46.600
<v Speaker 1>down outside of Vegas, and he was out there burning

0:27:46.680 --> 0:27:49.199
<v Speaker 1>up in the heat, and he had like a vision

0:27:49.480 --> 0:27:52.920
<v Speaker 1>for to just be in a swimming pool, and so

0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:55.520
<v Speaker 1>he was like, that needs to happen out here. So

0:27:55.520 --> 0:27:57.360
<v Speaker 1>that's what he did. He opened up the first big

0:27:57.400 --> 0:27:59.880
<v Speaker 1>place that had swimming pools and.

0:28:00.080 --> 0:28:02.120
<v Speaker 2>Restaurants, movie stars.

0:28:02.040 --> 0:28:05.520
<v Speaker 1>Movie stars and opera house, had places where you could shop.

0:28:05.760 --> 0:28:08.080
<v Speaker 1>It had the casino, of course, like the first what

0:28:08.160 --> 0:28:11.760
<v Speaker 1>we think of as a casino was that one. And

0:28:11.840 --> 0:28:13.840
<v Speaker 1>he did pretty well with it. They had show girls,

0:28:13.880 --> 0:28:14.919
<v Speaker 1>they had the whole nine yards.

0:28:15.200 --> 0:28:17.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they were the first one to have Vegas showgirls.

0:28:17.640 --> 0:28:22.560
<v Speaker 2>And I wasn't joking when I said movie stars. Clark

0:28:22.600 --> 0:28:27.960
<v Speaker 2>Gable was very famously stationed at El Rancho, Vegas when

0:28:28.119 --> 0:28:30.760
<v Speaker 2>Carol Lombard, his wife, died in a plane crash nearby,

0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:35.000
<v Speaker 2>I think on Table Mountain on the way to Las Vegas.

0:28:35.040 --> 0:28:38.200
<v Speaker 2>And he wasn't the only one. Like this was a

0:28:38.240 --> 0:28:42.520
<v Speaker 2>place where stars from La came. And as people from

0:28:42.680 --> 0:28:45.960
<v Speaker 2>people in Vegas started building places that like the cream

0:28:46.000 --> 0:28:50.600
<v Speaker 2>of the crop of Hollywood stars wanted to hang out,

0:28:51.280 --> 0:28:55.320
<v Speaker 2>it gave Vegas like the veneer of glamour that it

0:28:55.360 --> 0:28:58.720
<v Speaker 2>originally had. This is when it started the early forties.

0:28:59.080 --> 0:29:02.920
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and you know things were booming throughout the forties

0:29:03.000 --> 0:29:07.200
<v Speaker 1>and then into the fifties is when things even kicked

0:29:07.200 --> 0:29:09.440
<v Speaker 1>into a higher gear, like Vegas are just ramping up

0:29:09.480 --> 0:29:12.920
<v Speaker 1>more and more through the decades. That's when the Desert

0:29:13.000 --> 0:29:16.760
<v Speaker 1>End was built, the El Dorado Club downtown, which would

0:29:16.800 --> 0:29:23.440
<v Speaker 1>become Beny Binyon's Horseshoe Club. I think it's now just Binyons. Actually,

0:29:23.720 --> 0:29:25.959
<v Speaker 1>I think for a few years now it hasn't been

0:29:26.000 --> 0:29:28.440
<v Speaker 1>there at all, but it became Binions. It was famous

0:29:28.480 --> 0:29:30.720
<v Speaker 1>because the World Series of Poker was there every year.

0:29:31.960 --> 0:29:35.160
<v Speaker 1>In nineteen fifty five, the first high rise opened, which

0:29:35.200 --> 0:29:39.240
<v Speaker 1>was the Riviera. It was behind stories and get this,

0:29:39.520 --> 0:29:45.040
<v Speaker 1>they paid Liberachi fifty thousand dollars per week in nineteen

0:29:45.080 --> 0:29:46.320
<v Speaker 1>fifty five to play there.

0:29:46.760 --> 0:29:48.480
<v Speaker 2>In nineteen fifty five money.

0:29:48.480 --> 0:29:51.680
<v Speaker 1>That's six hundred and thirty one thousand dollars a week. Oh,

0:29:51.720 --> 0:29:56.680
<v Speaker 1>westake totally as is our tradition. Fifty eight Stardust opened

0:29:57.080 --> 0:29:59.520
<v Speaker 1>and we saw the debuts of a couple of gentlemen

0:29:59.520 --> 0:30:03.040
<v Speaker 1>who would be Vegas legends. Wayne Newton and Frank Sinatra

0:30:03.600 --> 0:30:06.360
<v Speaker 1>debuted there. And then also in the fifties is when

0:30:06.400 --> 0:30:09.920
<v Speaker 1>the first sort of boom and the wedding chapel business started.

0:30:10.800 --> 0:30:14.120
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And then I saw somewhere I cannot remember where

0:30:14.280 --> 0:30:19.800
<v Speaker 2>that no less than ten major casino resorts were built

0:30:20.080 --> 0:30:23.080
<v Speaker 2>in the fifties. That is an amazing building boom, Like

0:30:23.160 --> 0:30:26.800
<v Speaker 2>this is when Las Vegas became Vegas as we know it,

0:30:26.880 --> 0:30:32.320
<v Speaker 2>like it nostalgically, right. I also saw somewhere that I

0:30:32.360 --> 0:30:35.360
<v Speaker 2>think eleven were built and of those eleven, ten of

0:30:35.400 --> 0:30:40.200
<v Speaker 2>them were either financed by or outright owned by the mafia.

0:30:41.320 --> 0:30:44.640
<v Speaker 2>That was when the mafia really got its grip on

0:30:45.200 --> 0:30:48.400
<v Speaker 2>Las Vegas in the early fifties and throughout actually even

0:30:48.400 --> 0:30:51.960
<v Speaker 2>in the forties, the mid to late forties thanks to

0:30:52.040 --> 0:30:54.880
<v Speaker 2>a guy named Bugsy Seagull. But by the fifties, when

0:30:54.880 --> 0:30:57.160
<v Speaker 2>the fifties rolled around, like it was just it seemed

0:30:57.200 --> 0:31:02.360
<v Speaker 2>like it was reversible, the grip that the mob had

0:31:02.400 --> 0:31:03.560
<v Speaker 2>on Las Vegas.

0:31:03.680 --> 0:31:04.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, totally.

0:31:05.000 --> 0:31:05.120
<v Speaker 2>Uh.

0:31:05.520 --> 0:31:07.800
<v Speaker 1>And you said the words, Bugsy Siegel, and that feels

0:31:07.800 --> 0:31:36.880
<v Speaker 1>like a great place for a break, learn and stuff

0:31:36.960 --> 0:31:41.600
<v Speaker 1>with Joshua John stuff fu shine up.

0:31:45.240 --> 0:31:48.280
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So Chuck, I said, Bugsy Siegel, I'm actually talking

0:31:48.280 --> 0:31:51.880
<v Speaker 2>about one Benjamin Siegelbaum, who was born in nineteen oh six,

0:31:52.440 --> 0:31:55.080
<v Speaker 2>and by the time he reached his teenage years was

0:31:55.120 --> 0:31:58.960
<v Speaker 2>already running protection rackets on poor street push cart pedlars,

0:32:00.080 --> 0:32:01.960
<v Speaker 2>because you know, a protection racket means like, I'm going

0:32:02.040 --> 0:32:04.320
<v Speaker 2>to protect you from me if you don't give me,

0:32:04.640 --> 0:32:06.800
<v Speaker 2>if you give me money. If you don't, then I'm

0:32:06.800 --> 0:32:07.600
<v Speaker 2>going to come after you.

0:32:07.680 --> 0:32:08.160
<v Speaker 1>Right yeah.

0:32:08.200 --> 0:32:12.040
<v Speaker 2>This guy was doing this as a teenager. He became

0:32:12.120 --> 0:32:15.120
<v Speaker 2>friends with a guy named Meyer Lanski, and the two

0:32:15.160 --> 0:32:19.880
<v Speaker 2>of them together started bootlegging in during Prohibition, right.

0:32:20.240 --> 0:32:25.280
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and this was in New York. They eventually merged

0:32:25.280 --> 0:32:28.600
<v Speaker 1>with what was called the Syndicate, which was a nationwide

0:32:28.680 --> 0:32:33.680
<v Speaker 1>criminal enterprise, you know, it was the mob and Siegel

0:32:33.680 --> 0:32:38.200
<v Speaker 1>then formed a spinoff organization called Murder Inc. I totally

0:32:38.240 --> 0:32:40.560
<v Speaker 1>think we should do a whole episode on Murder Inc.

0:32:40.600 --> 0:32:42.640
<v Speaker 1>At some point. Sure, so we're not going to get

0:32:42.680 --> 0:32:46.360
<v Speaker 1>too into it, but Murder Inc. Was exactly like it sounds.

0:32:46.440 --> 0:32:50.760
<v Speaker 1>It was an organization that did contract killings. Apparently between

0:32:51.080 --> 0:32:55.040
<v Speaker 1>four hundred and one thousand contract killings took place at

0:32:55.040 --> 0:32:59.400
<v Speaker 1>the hand of Murder Inc. Including supposedly about thirty individuals

0:32:59.480 --> 0:33:01.160
<v Speaker 1>personally killed by Bugsy Siegull.

0:33:02.080 --> 0:33:07.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, if you have a criminal gang called murder Inc. Yeah,

0:33:07.360 --> 0:33:09.600
<v Speaker 2>that's going to draw the attention of the authorities. And

0:33:09.640 --> 0:33:12.000
<v Speaker 2>that happened very much in New York, and all of

0:33:12.040 --> 0:33:14.360
<v Speaker 2>a sudden they tried to crack down on the Murder

0:33:14.400 --> 0:33:17.640
<v Speaker 2>Ink gang member. So Bugsy Siegel said, so long New York,

0:33:17.680 --> 0:33:21.040
<v Speaker 2>I'm heading out west, and he landed in Los Angeles.

0:33:21.840 --> 0:33:26.120
<v Speaker 2>He was staying at the mansion of his girlfriend, Virginia Hill,

0:33:26.280 --> 0:33:30.440
<v Speaker 2>who herself was a mafioso. I guess mafiosa. She was

0:33:30.440 --> 0:33:34.640
<v Speaker 2>from Alabama but had somehow fallen into the mob. She

0:33:35.400 --> 0:33:38.800
<v Speaker 2>was a mafiosa as well. She wasn't just like a mall.

0:33:39.480 --> 0:33:41.600
<v Speaker 2>She was a gangster herself.

0:33:42.720 --> 0:33:48.160
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And she was played by Annette Benning to her

0:33:48.440 --> 0:33:53.120
<v Speaker 1>Warren Beatty to her, Warren Baby her husband. And it's

0:33:53.120 --> 0:33:53.800
<v Speaker 1>a great movie.

0:33:55.600 --> 0:33:56.480
<v Speaker 2>I've never seen it.

0:33:56.960 --> 0:34:01.200
<v Speaker 1>Ooh, man, Bugsy was awesome. Really yeah, yeah, yeah, it

0:34:01.240 --> 0:34:04.240
<v Speaker 1>was really really good. I mean, Warren Beatty didn't make

0:34:04.440 --> 0:34:06.160
<v Speaker 1>a bad movie that he directed.

0:34:06.800 --> 0:34:10.520
<v Speaker 2>Oh he directed it, didn't he direct? dISHTAR uh uh?

0:34:10.560 --> 0:34:11.160
<v Speaker 1>I don't think so.

0:34:11.480 --> 0:34:15.640
<v Speaker 2>Oh, Okay, I've never seen his star. I haven't either,

0:34:15.680 --> 0:34:18.560
<v Speaker 2>but I was alive at the time. O Ye, enough

0:34:18.560 --> 0:34:20.959
<v Speaker 2>that I know it was just a punchline even still

0:34:20.960 --> 0:34:21.839
<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty four.

0:34:22.120 --> 0:34:24.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'm pretty sure he directed Bugsy, but I'll have

0:34:24.880 --> 0:34:27.640
<v Speaker 1>to check that at any rate. Really really good movie.

0:34:27.760 --> 0:34:30.200
<v Speaker 2>Right, Okay, So that's about those two, and really it's

0:34:30.200 --> 0:34:34.320
<v Speaker 2>about Bugsy Siegel, and really it's about Bugsy Siegel building

0:34:34.360 --> 0:34:39.759
<v Speaker 2>Las Vegas. That is true to an extent in that

0:34:40.080 --> 0:34:43.480
<v Speaker 2>he really was the one who brought the mob to Vegas,

0:34:43.680 --> 0:34:47.239
<v Speaker 2>and apparently it was through some sort of happenstance. He

0:34:47.640 --> 0:34:50.799
<v Speaker 2>was living out in Hollywood and he met a guy

0:34:50.880 --> 0:34:55.359
<v Speaker 2>named Billy Wilkerson who was a gambler, a hotelier who

0:34:55.400 --> 0:34:58.279
<v Speaker 2>was trying to build like a really class joint out

0:34:58.320 --> 0:35:02.200
<v Speaker 2>in Vegas. And he said, Bugsy, why don't you come

0:35:02.239 --> 0:35:04.080
<v Speaker 2>in on this. Let me borrow some money from you.

0:35:04.080 --> 0:35:06.600
<v Speaker 2>You can have a stake in this hotel we're gonna build.

0:35:06.960 --> 0:35:08.640
<v Speaker 2>And Bugsy said, as long as it's not one of

0:35:08.640 --> 0:35:14.480
<v Speaker 2>those s kicker, you know, old Western hayseed themed resorts,

0:35:15.120 --> 0:35:17.360
<v Speaker 2>I'm in. And she said, no, no, no, that's gonna be

0:35:17.400 --> 0:35:19.520
<v Speaker 2>a great place. I don't know what we're gonna call

0:35:19.560 --> 0:35:21.239
<v Speaker 2>it yet, and Bugsy said, well, let's call it the

0:35:21.239 --> 0:35:24.480
<v Speaker 2>Flamingo because that's my nickname for my girlfriend, Virginia Hill

0:35:24.520 --> 0:35:26.800
<v Speaker 2>because she has really long legs. So we're going to

0:35:26.840 --> 0:35:28.719
<v Speaker 2>call this place Flamingo is like, you know, a little

0:35:28.760 --> 0:35:32.719
<v Speaker 2>wink toward her. And Bugsy was suddenly in the casino

0:35:32.840 --> 0:35:36.440
<v Speaker 2>resort building business. And he got in even further when

0:35:36.480 --> 0:35:39.399
<v Speaker 2>Billy Wilkerson couldn't pay him back because Bugsy said, well,

0:35:39.440 --> 0:35:40.960
<v Speaker 2>I'm going to kill you if you don't give me

0:35:41.040 --> 0:35:43.680
<v Speaker 2>this hotel. And that was the exit of Billy Wilkerson

0:35:43.840 --> 0:35:47.440
<v Speaker 2>and the real entree of Bugsy Siegel into Las Vegas,

0:35:47.680 --> 0:35:52.560
<v Speaker 2>which established the Mafia, the Syndicate, the mob as we

0:35:52.640 --> 0:35:55.600
<v Speaker 2>know it, into Vegas. And this was about the mid

0:35:55.680 --> 0:35:56.520
<v Speaker 2>nineteen forties.

0:35:56.920 --> 0:35:59.920
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he really And by the way, Barry Levison directed,

0:36:00.360 --> 0:36:02.839
<v Speaker 1>So I was wrong on that, Okay, but it's still

0:36:02.840 --> 0:36:05.279
<v Speaker 1>really good. Barry Letts didn't direct many bad movies either.

0:36:05.320 --> 0:36:06.200
<v Speaker 2>Didn't he do Diner?

0:36:07.160 --> 0:36:09.800
<v Speaker 1>Yeah? Great movie? Okay, you didn't like Diner?

0:36:09.960 --> 0:36:12.640
<v Speaker 2>I haven't seen it. I was just I was legitimately

0:36:12.680 --> 0:36:14.320
<v Speaker 2>ask I wasn't throwing shaite on Diner.

0:36:14.400 --> 0:36:16.640
<v Speaker 1>No, no, no. But when you said okay, oh, I know that.

0:36:17.120 --> 0:36:19.080
<v Speaker 2>I could read between my own lines, but I didn't

0:36:19.120 --> 0:36:20.480
<v Speaker 2>mean to write anything.

0:36:20.160 --> 0:36:25.959
<v Speaker 1>Then, Uh, well, that's a good quote. So he really

0:36:26.000 --> 0:36:31.200
<v Speaker 1>got involved in this casino, like the building, the design.

0:36:31.360 --> 0:36:33.839
<v Speaker 1>Like he wasn't just like all right, I'm gonna sort

0:36:33.880 --> 0:36:35.920
<v Speaker 1>of run this thing now and just let everyone do

0:36:35.960 --> 0:36:39.400
<v Speaker 1>their thing. He was involved in like the minutia of

0:36:39.440 --> 0:36:42.719
<v Speaker 1>the detail of the design of like picking out the

0:36:42.760 --> 0:36:46.600
<v Speaker 1>bedsheets and like you know, the artwork that hung in

0:36:46.640 --> 0:36:49.040
<v Speaker 1>the rooms. Like he was really really I think he

0:36:49.120 --> 0:36:51.040
<v Speaker 1>kind of found himself, Like he went to La to

0:36:51.280 --> 0:36:53.600
<v Speaker 1>try to be an actor. He was no good at that,

0:36:53.800 --> 0:36:57.560
<v Speaker 1>Like he always felt like wanted to be something more

0:36:57.600 --> 0:36:59.960
<v Speaker 1>than like a two bit mobster, which is what he was.

0:37:00.400 --> 0:37:02.319
<v Speaker 2>Well he no, he wasn't too big. He was like

0:37:02.400 --> 0:37:05.960
<v Speaker 2>the wet narcotics importer in the west on the West coast.

0:37:06.200 --> 0:37:08.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, I didn't mean too bit. I just meant

0:37:08.400 --> 0:37:10.800
<v Speaker 1>he didn't want to be looked at as the mobster.

0:37:10.840 --> 0:37:12.960
<v Speaker 1>That's why he tried to be an actor, gotcha, he tried.

0:37:13.040 --> 0:37:17.279
<v Speaker 1>He tried to be a hotel yer, right, hotel yer. Yeah,

0:37:17.280 --> 0:37:19.479
<v Speaker 1>but you know, none of that stuff was working out,

0:37:19.800 --> 0:37:24.680
<v Speaker 1>including initially at least the Flamingo, because when they opened it,

0:37:24.680 --> 0:37:27.399
<v Speaker 1>it was not a big hit right out of the gate.

0:37:28.000 --> 0:37:29.880
<v Speaker 1>Much to the chagrin of the syndicate.

0:37:30.360 --> 0:37:33.759
<v Speaker 2>He lost three hundred thousand dollars in one week the

0:37:33.800 --> 0:37:36.719
<v Speaker 2>first week it was open, and it was such a

0:37:36.800 --> 0:37:39.279
<v Speaker 2>huge loss that he had to shut the place down

0:37:39.320 --> 0:37:41.319
<v Speaker 2>so he didn't lose any more money, and he had

0:37:41.320 --> 0:37:45.600
<v Speaker 2>to get back to kind of reconfiguring things. Apparently they

0:37:45.600 --> 0:37:48.000
<v Speaker 2>didn't have rooms ready when they opened, so all the

0:37:48.000 --> 0:37:52.160
<v Speaker 2>gamblers came and then took their money elsewhere. All of

0:37:52.200 --> 0:37:55.840
<v Speaker 2>those details that he had personally selected were really expensive.

0:37:56.080 --> 0:37:58.520
<v Speaker 2>The original price tag was a million dollars. It ballooned

0:37:58.600 --> 0:38:01.879
<v Speaker 2>up to past six million. So yeah, there's a very

0:38:02.040 --> 0:38:07.160
<v Speaker 2>widely held belief that Bugsy was in hot water with

0:38:07.239 --> 0:38:12.080
<v Speaker 2>the mafia partners including Meyer, Lanski and Lucky Luciano, who

0:38:12.080 --> 0:38:16.480
<v Speaker 2>were backing him and his venture into Las Vegas. The

0:38:16.560 --> 0:38:21.040
<v Speaker 2>thing is, he supposedly when he reopened out of the

0:38:21.080 --> 0:38:26.440
<v Speaker 2>Gate the Flamingo in nineteen forty seven, started to become profitable.

0:38:26.880 --> 0:38:29.480
<v Speaker 2>So I've seen people say like, no, he actually wasn't

0:38:29.520 --> 0:38:33.279
<v Speaker 2>in hot water with his mafia people. And the reason

0:38:33.320 --> 0:38:37.640
<v Speaker 2>why it matters is because six months after it reopened,

0:38:37.719 --> 0:38:39.960
<v Speaker 2>or a few months after it reopened in June of

0:38:40.040 --> 0:38:44.719
<v Speaker 2>nineteen forty seven, Bugsy Seagull was assassinated hit in his

0:38:44.760 --> 0:38:48.640
<v Speaker 2>own home in well, Virginia Hills home in Los Angeles.

0:38:48.960 --> 0:38:53.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, hit through the window from behind, kind of sitting

0:38:53.080 --> 0:38:55.200
<v Speaker 1>on the couch. It's a great scene in the movie

0:38:56.400 --> 0:39:00.920
<v Speaker 1>His You know, the traditional thinking is that Lucky Luciano

0:39:01.000 --> 0:39:04.200
<v Speaker 1>and the syndicate was behind it, right Mayer Lansky, who

0:39:04.239 --> 0:39:07.719
<v Speaker 1>was his sort of oldest friend throughout this whole thing

0:39:07.760 --> 0:39:09.480
<v Speaker 1>because they were buddies back in New York in the

0:39:09.560 --> 0:39:12.520
<v Speaker 1>early days. I think just it was sort of seeing

0:39:12.560 --> 0:39:16.920
<v Speaker 1>the sad demise of his friend and what was going on.

0:39:17.680 --> 0:39:20.520
<v Speaker 1>Ben Kingsley is so so good as Mayor Lansky in

0:39:20.560 --> 0:39:23.560
<v Speaker 1>the movie. But not everyone believes it was a mob hit.

0:39:23.600 --> 0:39:28.680
<v Speaker 1>There's a guy named Bernie Sendler who was a emissary

0:39:28.680 --> 0:39:31.759
<v Speaker 1>for Lansky back in the day, and back then he

0:39:31.880 --> 0:39:34.279
<v Speaker 1>was on the record of saying like, I don't like

0:39:34.320 --> 0:39:35.920
<v Speaker 1>a lot of this deadn't add up as being a

0:39:35.960 --> 0:39:39.280
<v Speaker 1>mob hit. I think it was one of Virginia Hill's brothers,

0:39:39.719 --> 0:39:42.560
<v Speaker 1>one of her Marine Corps brothers, that was angry that

0:39:42.600 --> 0:39:44.320
<v Speaker 1>she was like wrapped up in all this stuff.

0:39:44.560 --> 0:39:46.800
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he makes the point. And this guy was literally

0:39:46.840 --> 0:39:49.280
<v Speaker 2>here at the time like he was working in Vegas

0:39:49.400 --> 0:39:51.799
<v Speaker 2>with Siegull and others at the time, so he knows

0:39:51.840 --> 0:39:55.920
<v Speaker 2>what he's talking about. He was saying that Siegel was

0:39:56.040 --> 0:39:59.319
<v Speaker 2>legit enough that you would have had to have get

0:39:59.400 --> 0:40:03.399
<v Speaker 2>gotten permi directly from Lucky Luciano, or the order would

0:40:03.400 --> 0:40:07.400
<v Speaker 2>have come directly from Lucky Luciano to kill Bugsy Seagull.

0:40:07.880 --> 0:40:11.479
<v Speaker 2>And then this guy's this guy's opinion, Maya Orlansky never

0:40:11.520 --> 0:40:14.360
<v Speaker 2>would have allowed that. He wouldn't have just stepped aside

0:40:14.400 --> 0:40:19.000
<v Speaker 2>and let his old friend be murdered hit and again

0:40:20.000 --> 0:40:22.440
<v Speaker 2>like he wasn't apparently in hock to the mob in

0:40:22.480 --> 0:40:26.120
<v Speaker 2>any way that he couldn't repay. So yeah, this guy,

0:40:26.200 --> 0:40:29.520
<v Speaker 2>this guy said it was one of Virginia Hill's brothers. Also,

0:40:29.640 --> 0:40:31.600
<v Speaker 2>he's got some pretty good points. One he said that

0:40:31.680 --> 0:40:34.080
<v Speaker 2>was not a mob hit. The mob doesn't use M

0:40:34.160 --> 0:40:37.359
<v Speaker 2>one carbines and shoot through an open window, Like they

0:40:37.400 --> 0:40:39.280
<v Speaker 2>take you on a car ride and the guy seated

0:40:39.280 --> 0:40:41.040
<v Speaker 2>behind you in the car shoot you in the head,

0:40:41.480 --> 0:40:44.600
<v Speaker 2>so they don't know, Yeah, that's how that's how the

0:40:44.600 --> 0:40:47.840
<v Speaker 2>mafia hit you. Right, So he's like it just didn't

0:40:47.840 --> 0:40:50.040
<v Speaker 2>add up to a mob hit. So that's a pretty

0:40:50.120 --> 0:40:53.839
<v Speaker 2>pretty interesting surprising thing. But if you think about it,

0:40:53.880 --> 0:40:56.319
<v Speaker 2>Bugsy was there for just a couple of years. But

0:40:56.360 --> 0:41:02.000
<v Speaker 2>the the the gains he made and the the ground

0:41:02.080 --> 0:41:05.440
<v Speaker 2>where he laid for the mafia is what led directly

0:41:05.520 --> 0:41:08.120
<v Speaker 2>to that huge boom in the control of the mafia

0:41:08.280 --> 0:41:11.080
<v Speaker 2>of Las Vegas that just erupted in the fifties.

0:41:11.800 --> 0:41:14.480
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, and then you know, into the sixties it

0:41:14.640 --> 0:41:19.480
<v Speaker 1>was firmly entrenched as like a mob hangout, obviously, a

0:41:19.480 --> 0:41:21.560
<v Speaker 1>place where you could gamble, where you could go and

0:41:21.640 --> 0:41:24.480
<v Speaker 1>get married in two seconds or divorced in two seconds,

0:41:24.960 --> 0:41:29.040
<v Speaker 1>where sex work was legal. I think in sixty three,

0:41:29.080 --> 0:41:32.640
<v Speaker 1>these guys Dick Taylor and Pat Howell wrote a book

0:41:32.719 --> 0:41:36.719
<v Speaker 1>called Las Vegas not a colon but a Comma rare

0:41:37.440 --> 0:41:42.200
<v Speaker 1>city of sin question mark. And that's where supposedly the

0:41:42.280 --> 0:41:45.319
<v Speaker 1>name sin City came around. Really kind of linked up

0:41:45.320 --> 0:41:47.200
<v Speaker 1>well with everything that was going on there at the time.

0:41:47.320 --> 0:41:52.320
<v Speaker 2>Great movie too, Sin City. Remember it was like based

0:41:52.360 --> 0:41:55.399
<v Speaker 2>on a graphic novel. It's got like Owen and.

0:41:55.800 --> 0:41:58.120
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, yeah, man, it's so good. That's Sin City.

0:41:58.239 --> 0:42:02.600
<v Speaker 1>That was good. Yeah, like the black and white Yeah, yeah,

0:42:02.640 --> 0:42:04.960
<v Speaker 1>really good. And the other big thing that happened in

0:42:05.000 --> 0:42:08.640
<v Speaker 1>the early sixties was mccaren Airport opened up in nineteen

0:42:08.680 --> 0:42:11.640
<v Speaker 1>sixty two, which, all of a sudden, you know, that

0:42:11.920 --> 0:42:14.560
<v Speaker 1>Southwest Airlines flight could start happening, although I don't know

0:42:14.560 --> 0:42:17.560
<v Speaker 1>if it happened back then, so don't google that.

0:42:17.840 --> 0:42:21.040
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so it wasn't just people from La and you know,

0:42:21.120 --> 0:42:23.280
<v Speaker 2>Arizona coming to Las Vegas. Now, all of a sudden,

0:42:23.280 --> 0:42:25.200
<v Speaker 2>there was people around the world. And apparently by the

0:42:25.239 --> 0:42:30.960
<v Speaker 2>seventies the largest population of tourists in Las Vegas were Midwesterners.

0:42:31.760 --> 0:42:32.080
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:42:32.239 --> 0:42:36.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, pretty funny. Oh as residents, no, no, no, as tourists

0:42:36.520 --> 0:42:41.680
<v Speaker 2>as visitors. Like the airport really really changed things. One

0:42:41.680 --> 0:42:44.560
<v Speaker 2>other really big thing that changed things in the sixties

0:42:44.560 --> 0:42:48.440
<v Speaker 2>for Vegas was Howard Hughes. So I said before it

0:42:48.480 --> 0:42:51.719
<v Speaker 2>looked like the Mob's grip on Las Vegas was irreversible,

0:42:51.760 --> 0:42:54.040
<v Speaker 2>and it may have been, and if Howard Hughes hadn't

0:42:54.040 --> 0:42:56.160
<v Speaker 2>have shown up. And he did a couple of things.

0:42:56.400 --> 0:43:02.160
<v Speaker 2>One he started buying casinos and hotels from the Mob directly. Yeah,

0:43:02.200 --> 0:43:05.040
<v Speaker 2>so for I think a little period in the sixties

0:43:05.120 --> 0:43:10.640
<v Speaker 2>maybe seventies, he was the single largest casino owner in

0:43:10.760 --> 0:43:13.879
<v Speaker 2>the in town. So he just basically took over from

0:43:13.920 --> 0:43:16.360
<v Speaker 2>the MOB by buying them out. And then also he

0:43:16.520 --> 0:43:21.160
<v Speaker 2>proposed that Las Vegas and Nevada the Gaming Commission changed

0:43:21.200 --> 0:43:24.359
<v Speaker 2>their rules about corporate ownership because before, if you were

0:43:24.360 --> 0:43:28.200
<v Speaker 2>a corporation and you wanted to own a casino, every

0:43:28.239 --> 0:43:32.560
<v Speaker 2>single shareholder had to pass a background check. You could

0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:36.080
<v Speaker 2>be talking about thousands of people. It was just untenable.

0:43:36.120 --> 0:43:38.160
<v Speaker 2>You couldn't do it. And he said, why don't you

0:43:38.239 --> 0:43:40.600
<v Speaker 2>just make it so that the key players, like the

0:43:40.680 --> 0:43:42.920
<v Speaker 2>real high up execs who are going to be running

0:43:42.960 --> 0:43:46.120
<v Speaker 2>the place, just do backgrounds on them, forget the shareholders.

0:43:46.440 --> 0:43:48.520
<v Speaker 2>And the Gaming Commission said, that's a that's a really

0:43:48.560 --> 0:43:51.120
<v Speaker 2>good idea. And now all of a sudden, the Mob

0:43:51.200 --> 0:43:55.440
<v Speaker 2>had competition from Wall Street and huge corporations that were

0:43:55.480 --> 0:43:57.719
<v Speaker 2>coming in and they ended up getting muscled out.

0:43:58.520 --> 0:44:01.279
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean that was that was it. That was

0:44:02.040 --> 0:44:04.200
<v Speaker 1>either the beginning of the beginning or the beginning of

0:44:04.239 --> 0:44:05.879
<v Speaker 1>the end, depending on which way you want to look

0:44:05.880 --> 0:44:09.399
<v Speaker 1>at it. Yeah, but once Wall Street corporations could kind

0:44:09.400 --> 0:44:11.399
<v Speaker 1>of stroll in there and just start buying up these

0:44:11.440 --> 0:44:13.960
<v Speaker 1>properties that you know, this is in the in the

0:44:14.000 --> 0:44:17.440
<v Speaker 1>sixties and seventies, so this is this is still like

0:44:17.719 --> 0:44:22.160
<v Speaker 1>a boom time for Vegas. It's a city that's seemingly

0:44:22.239 --> 0:44:26.839
<v Speaker 1>always expanding and under construction. Like I don't remember going

0:44:26.840 --> 0:44:30.920
<v Speaker 1>to Vegas. I started going there in the I guess

0:44:31.000 --> 0:44:34.640
<v Speaker 1>like nineteen ninety one or so was my first trip,

0:44:35.280 --> 0:44:37.640
<v Speaker 1>And every time I've been has just struck me as like,

0:44:37.920 --> 0:44:40.719
<v Speaker 1>are they ever going to stop developing and building in

0:44:40.719 --> 0:44:45.880
<v Speaker 1>this town? And probably not, because it continued all, you know,

0:44:45.880 --> 0:44:47.600
<v Speaker 1>all through them. They've had their lulls. I think there

0:44:47.719 --> 0:44:53.480
<v Speaker 1>was you know, some years here and there, within decades

0:44:53.960 --> 0:44:56.799
<v Speaker 1>that things weren't aren't as robust and where they were,

0:44:57.360 --> 0:44:59.799
<v Speaker 1>you know, where the gambling industry and the whole sin

0:45:00.000 --> 0:45:02.040
<v Speaker 1>industry sort of took a little bit of a hit,

0:45:02.200 --> 0:45:03.240
<v Speaker 1>but not that much.

0:45:03.480 --> 0:45:07.160
<v Speaker 2>Well, it wasn't even necessarily that that it took a hit.

0:45:07.280 --> 0:45:11.920
<v Speaker 2>It was that Vegas it just lost its glitz and glamour,

0:45:12.120 --> 0:45:14.800
<v Speaker 2>especially starting in the seventies and in through the eighties,

0:45:15.800 --> 0:45:18.840
<v Speaker 2>where it just became tacky. That's what everybody thought of

0:45:18.840 --> 0:45:21.680
<v Speaker 2>as a tacky. The entertainers who used to like draw

0:45:21.880 --> 0:45:26.560
<v Speaker 2>crowds internationally, they weren't there. The people who were performing

0:45:26.600 --> 0:45:29.480
<v Speaker 2>in Vegas, their careers were washed up, right, So like

0:45:29.520 --> 0:45:30.600
<v Speaker 2>that was great.

0:45:30.680 --> 0:45:31.120
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, nope.

0:45:31.120 --> 0:45:33.279
<v Speaker 2>The food was terrible, like all you can eat prime

0:45:33.400 --> 0:45:37.480
<v Speaker 2>rib for like five dollars kind of stuff. This idea

0:45:37.560 --> 0:45:40.439
<v Speaker 2>of Vegas in the eighties. It was just decrepit and

0:45:40.960 --> 0:45:43.359
<v Speaker 2>a place you went like as a lark or if

0:45:43.400 --> 0:45:45.919
<v Speaker 2>you had like a serious gambling problem and liked five

0:45:45.960 --> 0:45:46.839
<v Speaker 2>dollars prime rib.

0:45:46.960 --> 0:45:48.280
<v Speaker 1>Right. Yeah.

0:45:49.280 --> 0:45:51.759
<v Speaker 2>And in the same way that Howard Hughes kind of

0:45:52.040 --> 0:45:54.640
<v Speaker 2>came along and was like, I'm going to save this town,

0:45:55.000 --> 0:45:57.600
<v Speaker 2>Steve Wynn did the same thing at a time when

0:45:57.640 --> 0:46:01.160
<v Speaker 2>Vegas was viewed as super tacky and backs and just lame.

0:46:01.760 --> 0:46:06.640
<v Speaker 2>He invested hundreds of millions of dollars into the Mirage

0:46:06.760 --> 0:46:09.600
<v Speaker 2>and he opened it, gave thirty million dollars to Sigfried

0:46:09.640 --> 0:46:13.040
<v Speaker 2>and Roy and completely changed the face of Las Vegas,

0:46:13.120 --> 0:46:16.320
<v Speaker 2>completely changed the market who they were trying to attract.

0:46:16.400 --> 0:46:18.640
<v Speaker 2>They were suddenly attracting families, like it was okay to

0:46:18.680 --> 0:46:21.720
<v Speaker 2>bring your kids to Vegas now, like there was something

0:46:21.800 --> 0:46:25.120
<v Speaker 2>for everybody. And he completely saved Las Vegas.

0:46:25.400 --> 0:46:28.400
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, for sure. I think like a place like Caesar's

0:46:28.400 --> 0:46:33.200
<v Speaker 1>before that did a lot to sort of raise the

0:46:33.600 --> 0:46:37.239
<v Speaker 1>you know, the perception of Vegas is it's but it

0:46:37.280 --> 0:46:40.120
<v Speaker 1>wasn't like in the family way, No, in like.

0:46:40.080 --> 0:46:43.520
<v Speaker 2>The fantasy way though, like like that. They definitely started that,

0:46:43.640 --> 0:46:45.200
<v Speaker 2>I think, Yeah.

0:46:45.000 --> 0:46:49.640
<v Speaker 1>I mean when they started building casinos with roller coasters

0:46:49.640 --> 0:46:53.560
<v Speaker 1>and playgrounds and more family friendly shows, because you know,

0:46:54.080 --> 0:46:56.319
<v Speaker 1>at one point Vegas like all those shows were like

0:46:56.560 --> 0:47:00.520
<v Speaker 1>topless basically, right, and then all of a sudden, if

0:47:00.520 --> 0:47:03.520
<v Speaker 1>you had family friendly stuff going on, it was it

0:47:03.560 --> 0:47:06.080
<v Speaker 1>was like, hey, you don't have to just you know,

0:47:07.000 --> 0:47:09.480
<v Speaker 1>the gambling addict in your family isn't the only one

0:47:10.080 --> 0:47:11.800
<v Speaker 1>that's going to want to come here. Now you can.

0:47:12.160 --> 0:47:14.880
<v Speaker 1>You can be that and drag your kids along and

0:47:15.160 --> 0:47:16.640
<v Speaker 1>they can go see a kid friendly show.

0:47:16.680 --> 0:47:19.760
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they're like, definitely, bring the gambling addict in your family,

0:47:19.880 --> 0:47:22.640
<v Speaker 2>We want them there. But you guys can come too, right.

0:47:23.080 --> 0:47:25.200
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And it got a lot more expensive, you mean,

0:47:25.239 --> 0:47:28.319
<v Speaker 1>the old Vegas days, even when I first started going there,

0:47:28.880 --> 0:47:30.720
<v Speaker 1>you could get a pretty cheap room and a pretty

0:47:30.760 --> 0:47:33.520
<v Speaker 1>cheap meal. But that that all changed. Vegas is not

0:47:33.800 --> 0:47:35.440
<v Speaker 1>a cheap town, to know it anymore.

0:47:35.480 --> 0:47:38.120
<v Speaker 2>It changed thanks to Steeve whenn in that whole shift,

0:47:38.160 --> 0:47:40.319
<v Speaker 2>and now it kind of shifted again to this kind

0:47:40.320 --> 0:47:44.120
<v Speaker 2>of like ultra luxury destination and that's where we are

0:47:44.239 --> 0:47:49.160
<v Speaker 2>right now. Yeah, well, let's Las Vegas up to basically now.

0:47:49.480 --> 0:47:50.919
<v Speaker 2>I know we said we're going to go to late

0:47:50.920 --> 0:47:53.440
<v Speaker 2>eighties and nineties, but we took it even further. So

0:47:53.880 --> 0:47:56.960
<v Speaker 2>if you didn't like that, sorry, If you want to

0:47:57.000 --> 0:47:59.520
<v Speaker 2>know more about Las Vegas, start reading about it, go

0:47:59.600 --> 0:48:02.719
<v Speaker 2>visit it. Whatever you want to do. And since I

0:48:02.719 --> 0:48:09.080
<v Speaker 2>said whatever you want to do is time for listener may.

0:48:08.320 --> 0:48:12.080
<v Speaker 1>This is gasoline cleaning mystery resolved. We had a few

0:48:12.080 --> 0:48:15.719
<v Speaker 1>people write in about that. In the episode The Teleisian

0:48:15.800 --> 0:48:19.759
<v Speaker 1>Massacre from December twenty twenty, you discuss how the instigator

0:48:19.800 --> 0:48:21.360
<v Speaker 1>and murder at the scene of the crime was in

0:48:21.400 --> 0:48:24.920
<v Speaker 1>a state worker named Julian Carlton. While retrieving the gasoline

0:48:24.920 --> 0:48:27.000
<v Speaker 1>that caused part of the fire incident and the property,

0:48:27.280 --> 0:48:29.200
<v Speaker 1>he told his boss that he was getting the gasoline

0:48:29.200 --> 0:48:31.680
<v Speaker 1>to clean a rug. Why do I remember this tiny

0:48:31.680 --> 0:48:34.760
<v Speaker 1>detail because at the end of the episode, Josh says

0:48:35.280 --> 0:48:38.000
<v Speaker 1>he found Carlton's grave on the website Find a Grave,

0:48:38.080 --> 0:48:41.200
<v Speaker 1>and rather innocuously, a pop up bubble on the site,

0:48:41.480 --> 0:48:43.960
<v Speaker 1>prompting the viewer to write a moving memory, said what

0:48:44.080 --> 0:48:47.240
<v Speaker 1>is one thing you'll always remember about Julian Chuck answered

0:48:47.360 --> 0:48:49.839
<v Speaker 1>that question by saying he could really get the stain

0:48:49.920 --> 0:48:54.040
<v Speaker 1>out of a rug. And I found that joke absolutely hilarious.

0:48:54.480 --> 0:48:56.040
<v Speaker 1>Love the show, guys, can't wait for you to come

0:48:56.080 --> 0:48:59.279
<v Speaker 1>back to Cleveland. I'm the manager of the largest site

0:48:59.280 --> 0:49:01.080
<v Speaker 1>seeing ship and clean Lynn on Lake Erie and the

0:49:01.200 --> 0:49:05.399
<v Speaker 1>Cyoga River, The Good Time three and Chuck. I'm also

0:49:05.400 --> 0:49:08.839
<v Speaker 1>a graduate at the University of Akron go zips And

0:49:08.880 --> 0:49:13.720
<v Speaker 1>that is from Luke ucbo is how I'm gonna pronounce

0:49:13.760 --> 0:49:14.359
<v Speaker 1>that very long?

0:49:14.400 --> 0:49:16.399
<v Speaker 2>I got it right, Luke, Thanks a lot, Luke, eat

0:49:16.440 --> 0:49:19.839
<v Speaker 2>your heart out of Good Times one and two. If

0:49:19.880 --> 0:49:21.440
<v Speaker 2>you want to be like Luke and tell us how

0:49:21.480 --> 0:49:24.239
<v Speaker 2>much we cracked you up. We love hearing that kind

0:49:24.280 --> 0:49:26.680
<v Speaker 2>of thing. You can wrap it up, spank it on

0:49:26.719 --> 0:49:29.359
<v Speaker 2>the bottom, and send it off to Stuff podcast at

0:49:29.360 --> 0:49:35.560
<v Speaker 2>iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production

0:49:35.640 --> 0:49:36.439
<v Speaker 2>of iHeartRadio.

0:49:36.920 --> 0:49:40.160
<v Speaker 1>For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

0:49:40.320 --> 0:49:43.240
<v Speaker 1>Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.