Las Vegas History

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The Birth of Las Vegas

The Birth of Las Vegas

By 1890, railroad developers had determined the water-rich Las Vegas Valley would be a prime location for a stop facility and town. More than a quarter century earlier, Nevada, known as the Battle Born State, had been admitted to the Union in 1864 during the Civil War.

The American explorer, Colonel John C. Fremont, discovered the water-meadows of Las Vegas (Las Vegas means 'the meadows' in Spanish) in 1844. He later became California's first Senator (), the first Presidential candidate of the newly-formed Republican Party (1856), a Major General in the American Civil War (1861-65) and governor of Arizona Territory ().

Fremont is called The Pathfinder. He is one of the most important figures in U.S. history due to his determination to explore, open and lead the West. In 1905, Downtown Las Vegas' Fremont Street was named in his honor.

The Railroad in Las Vegas

The Railroad in Las Vegas

Work on the first railroad grade into Las Vegas began in the summer of 1904. The tent town called Las Vegas sprouted saloons, stores and boarding houses.

Rails were connected with the eastern segment of track in October of 1904. The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City's Railroad, later absorbed by its parent the Union Pacific, made its inaugural run from California to points east on Jan. 20, 1905.

The railroad yards were located at the birthplace of a partially paved, dusty Fremont Street. Jackie Gaughan's Plaza Hotel, located at Main and Fremont streets in Downtown Las Vegas, today stands on the site of the original Union Pacific Railroad depot.

Freight and passenger trains still use the depot site at the hotel as a terminal -- the only railroad station in the world located inside a hotel-casino.

Las Vegas' Competition

Las Vegas' Competition

Advent of the railroad led to the founding of Las Vegas on May 15, 1905. The SanPedro Railroad, owned by Montana Senator Williams Andrews Clark, auctioned off 1,200 lots in a single day in an area which today is casino-lined Glitter Gulch.

When Las Vegas began in 1905, mainly just as a train stop - Goldfield, Nevada (located 180 miles northwest) was enjoying its heyday-boomtown years. From , Goldfield yeilded over $20,000,000 in gold. In 1905, Las Vegas was basically filled with tents and shacks, while Goldfield had four-story buildings and opulent hotels. The $450,000 Goldfield Hotel was then the most spectacular hotel in Nevada, employing a staff of 80 bartendars - having plush carpeting & upholstery, phones in every room, gilded columns, mahogany walls, crystal chandeliers, plus an elevator.

But the gold eventually ran out in Goldfield. In 1906 its population was 30,000, but by 1950 its population was only 275. The boom-years for Las Vegas wouldn't begin until 1931, after the completion of the Boulder Dam and the 1931 legalization of gambling and 6 week divorces.