|
As Las Vegas began the 1960’s, the city was riding a
glorious wave. The greater Las Vegas area had grown
to a population of over 125,000 residents. In the
first few months of 1960, Frank Sinatra and his ‘Rat
Pack’ buddies would hold ‘The Summit’ in Las
Vegas. They were filming the movie Ocean’s 11 by
day, and by night performing two shows in the Copa
Room at the Sands. The La
Dolce Vita
crowd showed up in force; even the next president,
Senator John F. Kennedy paid his respects by
attending one of the shows. As we know it today,
Las Vegas would go on to greater heights, but it
would never be the same cool spot of the Hollywood
in-crowd.
|
 |
|
Today, many people still refer to Las Vegas
as ‘Sin City’. There is NO real sin in Las
Vegas today; it is controlled, monitored and
acceptable sin. In the 1950’s and early
60’s, they had REAL SIN, and real fun. Las
Vegas became too successful. It attracted
worldwide attention. Gamblers, wise guys,
everyone looking to get rich and to start
anew flooded Vegas. From the beginning, Las
Vegas was like a car wash for people;
whatever your problems anywhere else, once
you arrived in Vegas, you were ‘born
again’. It also attracted the Justice
Department and it’s Attorney General, Robert
Kennedy, and by the middle 60’s, Howard
Hughes.
The 60’s economy started out
sluggish and the new President already had
problems in Cuba with the Bay of Pigs
fiasco. The building boom of the 50’s
became a foreclosure debacle, with tracts of
new homes unsold. But Vegas NEVER quits,
and the Las Vegas recovery would start in
Chicago with Bally Manufacturing.
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Charles Fey of San Francisco invented the
three-reel slot machine in 1895. It was not
until 1907 that Mills, Jennings and other
slot machine companies copied and
manufactured the same type of mechanism for
almost 60 years. The machines were all
mechanical, very bland and you could get a
Hernia pulling the handle. They could pay
no more than 20 coins (an attendant would
pay all larger jackpots in cash.) Slots
were the mainstay of downtown Las Vegas, but
never a big moneymaker. The Strip Hotels had
a few slot machines in their casinos for the
customers that didn’t know how to play Craps
or Blackjack.
The old slot machines were very labor
intensive because they broke down all the
time, they needed mechanics, they needed
change girls to sell coins, and they needed
supervisors to payoff the large jackpots.
Because these jackpots were in cash, the
payoffs would go in the customer’s pocket,
instead of returning to the slot machine. |
|
 |
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
In 1963, Bally Manufacturing built, ‘Money
Honey’, the slot machine that would change
everything. This machine had a ‘hopper’
full of coins that could pay off large
jackpots in full. No more cash payoffs, now
the winner had hundreds of coins in the slot
machine tray, and he could easily put these
coins back in the machine. What a novel
idea, put the winnings back in the machine,
and a very profitable idea. These machines
had lights, chrome, action, and were fun to
play. Within a few years, EVERY slot
machine in Las Vegas would be Bally, and
thousands of them would be in the Strip
Hotels. It was the beginning of a new era,
everyone wanted to play a slot machine and
slots became the biggest moneymaker ever for
Las Vegas. |
|
Meyer Lansky organized
wise-guy money from all over the country
to build Las Vegas in the 50’s, but now this
was the 60’s and everything needed to be
bigger and better. Even Meyer Lansky
couldn’t pool enough money together to build
a 25 story 2000 room hotel/casino. Vegas
needed big money and there was stigma to
gambling and the town. Nevada is a ‘right
to work’ state, but Las Vegas has always
been a union town. Since the same
wise-guys that ran the casinos also ran
the unions, enter Jimmy Hoffa, The Teamsters
Union and their Pension Fund. With loans
from the Pension Fund, the wise-guys
had unlimited amounts of money and anything
was possible; for Las Vegas the biggest and
best were yet to come. Vegas NEVER quits… |
|
 |
|
The problem for Las Vegas … Jimmy Hoffa and The
Teamsters had enemies, The United States Justice
Department and it’s Attorney General, Robert
Kennedy. As Attorney General, Kennedy relentlessly
pursued Hoffa, and the Justice Department never
stopped investigating The Teamsters or Las Vegas.
The connection hurt, but money to build Vegas never
quit coming. Despite the harassment from The
Justice Department, The Teamsters were making big
money because NO hotel/casino EVER defaulted on a
Teamsters Union loan!
|
 |
|
Las Vegas would have always been a
wise-guy town, if all it’s money came
from wise-guy Unions. Enter Howard Hughes.
From the early days, Hughes loved Las Vegas
and now he was flush with money after
selling TWA, the airline he built to compete
with Pan Am. These were America’s largest
worldwide airlines, and both are gone
today. In the four years Howard Hughes
lived in the two top floors of the Desert
Inn, he owned five Strip hotels, but never
built anything. His contribution was
corporate ownership. The State of Nevada,
in a special session just for Hughes, passed
Legislation to allow the Howard Hughes
corporation ownership of the five Strip
hotels. Corporate ownership paved the way
for stock offerings and more conventional
financing of the mega hotel/casinos that
were yet to come. Vegas NEVER quits. |
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
The building boom slowed in the early 60’s,
there were some conversions and updates; The
San Souci became The Castaways in 1963; The
Tally Ho became The Aladdin 1966, and The
New Frontier became The Frontier in 1967.
One of the biggest changes in the decade
came from one man, a good friend of Jimmy
Hoffa, Jay Sarno. With Teamsters money, Jay
Sarno built the first major theme
hotel/casino in Las Vegas, Caesars Palace in
August 1966 and Circus Circus Casino,
October 1968.
|
|
 |
| |
|
|
By the end of the decade, the man who owns almost
all the Strip properties today, Kirk
Kerkorian, would open The International Hotel July
1969, now The LV Hilton.
As 1970 began, the old Las Vegas ‘Summit Days’ were
gone; it was an entirely different country. In just
ten years, the entire mood, money and politics of
the country had changed forever. No longer was
Frank, Sammy or Dean hip, now Elvis was mainstream.
The Vietnam War, drugs, sex and rock & roll, took
all the attention; the love generation wanted
nothing to do with the Vegas style of
entertainment. How could the La Dolce
Vita
crowd, attending Sinatra’s Summit, have known, they
were witnessing the beginning of the end of the
coolest place in America?
Now, almost 50 years later, take a walk down the
Strip, close your eyes, you could almost see the
high water mark, where the wave rolled back and
marked the end of the golden age for Las Vegas.
When the music's
over; Turn out the lights…The Doors
Not so fast,
Vegas Never Quits…..A new era begins
Next, The
Polyester Years |
|
