I am still big, the pictures got smaller. ~Gloria Swanson, Sunset Blvd. 1950

THE BOSS CALLED, she wanted me to write a series of stories about the good old days in Las Vegas and compare it to today. I said I would try, but the more I thought about it, everything is smaller now. The old days are dead, and best left in the past.

I grew up near Disneyland, but my folks were not much for amusement parks, so we would go to Las Vegas instead. From 1955 to 1970, we traveled to Vegas every three months. Vegas had no rules in the late '50s; it was the place for the in-crowd, less than 30,000 full-time residents, an island surrounded by 300 miles of sand in every direction. Vegas was isolated from the rest of the world, it attracted a certain type of East or West coast visitor, and it was marketed as the adult Disneyland. Las Vegas was for the hip, and naughty, but Disneyland was for everybody.

The 1950s married children born in The Depression and raised during World War II to a new world of prosperity; with increasing home and stock market values, rising incomes, and lots of spending money. Las Vegas, like Disneyland was marketing to this crowd, the new middle class. From the beginning, America has always been a marketing wonderland, but now we had mass media, Television.

Both being on the west coast, Disneyland and Las Vegas grew up together, and prospered because of each other. Once I reached driving age, I would go to Disneyland twice a month. They built Las Vegas for my parents, but Disneyland was built for their Baby Boomer children. As a Baby Boomer, I was less interested in Frank Sinatra, and more interested in Rocky & Bullwinkle.

In 1957, the average cost per person to visit Disneyland was $2.29, this included admission, rides, souvenirs, and parking. In 1958, a room at the new Stardust Hotel & Casino was $7.00; a dinner-show anywhere in Las Vegas was no more than $10.00. This included a wonderful dinner, dancing showgirls, an opening act, and a headliner like Frank, Dean, or Sammy.

The post-war boom really began for Las Vegas and Los Angeles in the first few years of the 1950s. By 1957, Disneyland was just two years old, and over a million people had visited. There were 10 major Hotel & Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. Every weekend Las Vegas hotels were booked solid, and there were long lines at Disneyland. After 20 years of Depression and War, everyone was spending money at America's two new attractions. Now, 50 years later, Disneyland and Las Vegas have matured, and both have changed, they are catering to a new group of people. These are the children of the Baby Boomers, they know only prosperity, they have different wants and needs, and they're not afraid to pay a big price for their desires. More next time…

There's nothing tragic about being fifty. Not unless you're trying to be twenty-five. ~William Holden, Sunset Blvd. 1950