as Vegas, Nevada is a vibrant pulsating city and the largest adult playground in the world. It is a community that was created from the wastelands of the Mojave Desert in Nevada specifically to provide a gambling and entertainment oasis for the titillation seeking residents of post-war Los Angeles. Everything in Las Vegas has been done (or overdone) on a grand and spectacular scale. Along the Las Vegas strip, a black glass pyramid rises over a hundred meters above the desert with a larger than full sized replica of the Sphinx at its entry. Next to it, sits a larger than life castle with garishly colored turrets. Across the street, is a scaled-down skyline of New York City complete with a Brooklyn Bridge and a Statue of Liberty. Beyond that, you can see a half-sized replica of the Eifel Tower, a near full sized replica of the Piazza San Marco from Venice and a large volcano that erupts flames every thirty minutes. In Las Vegas, you often ask yourself, "Is this really a city, or am I visiting some futuristic amusement park on another planet?"
On any given evening in Las Vegas, you will find hundreds of entertainment events such as the renown Las Vegas stage shows, world class sporting events, performances by world famous entertainers plus music, dance and comedy at large and small venues throughout the city. This city never seems to sleep. The frivolity continues long into the night and the serious gamblers continue their pursuit of riches until well after the morning sun has risen on a new day.
The city was created by a reputed gangster
In 1931 gambling was legalized in the barren desert state of Nevada while it remained illegal in the more populous neighboring state of California. As early as 1940, the first hotel casino named El Rancho Vegas was constructed on the outskirts of a sleepy desert community in the Mojave Desert of southern Nevada known as Las Vegas. A second hotel casino named the Last Frontier was opened a year later. Both profited from their proximity to the large gambling population living in Los Angeles and other southern California communities. In December of 1946, Bugsy Siegal a reputed New York gangster, then living in Beverly Hills California, and managing various illegal gambling operations on the West Coast, built a lavish new hotel casino named the Flamingo. He dreamed of creating a whole new resort city in the desert dedicated to gambling and entertainment. Unfortunately, Bugsy was shot to death in his Beverly Hills home in 1947; so he never got to see his dream fulfilled; but the legacy of lavish hotel casinos controlled by gangsters persisted in Las Vegas for many decades to come.
Today, this desert gambling oasis is a thriving city with more than one million inhabitants and over 38 million visitors a year. It is one of the fastest growing cities in the USA, with up to 5,000 new residents settling there every month. It has fourteen of the fifteen largest hotels in the USA and over 130,000 rooms available to visitors. Gambling and entertainment are still its biggest attractions and its largest industries. Supposedly, all the mafia gangsters have been removed from the Las Vegas gambling scene, only to be replaced by large corporate owners. (Is that an improvement?) In 1999, Oscar Goodman, the flamboyant lawyer whose spirited defense of many reputed gangsters and criminals earned him the unofficial title of "mouthpiece for the mob", was elected mayor of Las Vegas. He seems to be a most appropriate character to lead the government of "Sin City" USA.
Las Vegas Boulevard is "the Strip"
Las Vegas is located in the southwestern corner of Nevada near the borders of California and Arizona. It is 275 miles (450 km) from Los Angeles and less than a four-hours drive on excellent interstate highway. The city is situated in a broad flat desert valley surrounded by barren arid mountains. It receives only about 2 inches (5 cm) of rain per year; yet the city is an oasis of green grass, flowers and palm trees all subsisting on imported water. A vast checkerboard of low suburban homes sprawls across the valley floor for dozens of miles in every direction with new tracts of houses eternally sprouting like fields of cactus in the surrounding desert.
Las Vegas Information
Climate
While it is hot in the summer, Las Vegas has one of the best climates in the United States. Our summer heat is easier to deal with than the summer heat in most other places including parts of the midwest, east and south. Las Vegas enjoys an average of 289 days of sunshine per year. Since this is a 'night-time', 24-hour city, the warm, dry summer nights are outstanding for visitors and locals. Location
Las Vegas is centrally located in the Southwest quadrant of the United States. Partly because of this, Las Vegas was destined to become a distribution and transportation center. Easy access to California, Arizona, Utah and many other places in the west has helped to make Las Vegas a primary warehousing point for several large nationally based corporations.
Transportation
Las Vegas is a hub for airlines, railroads, trucking and highways. Major and regional airlines find Las Vegas to be one of their most popular destinations. McCarran International Airport is the 8th busiest airport in the US. Las Vegas was founded as a railroad city. Because of its central location, it is still a principal on-route destination for the railroads. Setting
Las Vegas is the closest major city to more internationally famous parks than any other city in the United States. Las Vegas is the gateway to the Grand Canyon. More people visit the Grand Canyon from Las Vegas than from anywhere else.Lake Mead National and Recreation Area is only 20 minutes east of Las Vegas. Lake Mead has over 10 million visitors a year. Hoover Dam is only 30 minutes from Las Vegas. Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon, in Utah, are only a few hours away from Las Vegas. Death Valley gets more visitors from Las Vegas than from anywhere else. Yosemite is also only a few hours away from Las Vegas. There are several 'local' parks that are just as outstanding as these. The Valley Of Fire is a state park which has over 200,000 visitors per year.Red Rock Canyon is a favorite of the locals. The Spring Mountains with forests, skiing, snowboarding and camping are also a local favorite. The Great Basin National Park is very new. Once people find out about this park, it will receive a LOT of visitors. Most of them coming through Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas Valley is surrounded by mountains. To the west are the Spring Mountains. To the south is the McCullough Range made up of extinct volcanoes. To the east is Frenchmans Mountain which exhibits, in widely variegated colors, about 600 million years of earths history. To the north is the Sheep Range whose limestone strata swirl and shift in so many directions geologists disagree as to the interpretation of their geological record.
Las Vegas Tourism
The robust economy of Las Vegas has its source in the over 30 milion visitors a year.The principal attractions are entertainment, gambling, climate, proximity to national parks, gorgeous hotels, 24 hour atmosphere, cheap lodging and food, major sporting events, and hundreds of other diversions.
Tourism started slowly in Las Vegas with the legalization of gambling in the 1930's. Since then, the industry has gone through several evolutions. From Mob ties in the early days to the Howard Hughes era, the industry has constantly renewed itself. Currently, Las Vegas is in the 'mega-resort' phase of its development. Huge, billion dollar resort complexes are now the norm. Each of these meg-resorts are so impressive as to become destinations in themselves. The one thing that has not changed about the resorts in Las Vegas is that they still like to base themselves around some kind a appealing theme. Caesars Palace has a Roman theme. The Luxor has an Egyptian theme.
Las Vegas Sky View
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