Las Vegas - United States of America (USA)

It was only a small town; evident in Captain John Fremont's note of Las Vegas as one of his 'Far West Explorations' that no-one other than Spanish explorers, missionaries and the indigenous Indians knew the town. Ten years later, in 1855, Brigham Young from Salt Lake City assigned 30 Mormon missionaries to colonize the valley and to teach farming techniques to Paiute Indians, the indigenous settlers. They built a 150 square foot adobe brick fort which constituted the first non-Indian settlement in the region, part of the fort still stands as the oldest structure in Las Vegas and is named the 'Mormon Fort'. However, after two years of endeavor, the Paiutes rejected the techniques and the fort was abandoned in 1857.

In 1902, with the attempt to complete the main railway linking Southern California with Salt Lake City resulting in a railroad company buying majority of the land. Indeed, the availability of water made Las Vegas an ideal refueling point, servicing, repair facilities and rest stop, until the track was completed in 1905, the town was built up and gained a reputation for 'Wild West' lifestyle. As the project was ended, the railroad company held an auction and sold some part of the land which then became the terrain for hotels, stores, saloons. The town became a city, found as Las Vegas City on 15 May 1905 governed as part of Lincoln Country until 1909 before becoming a seat for the newly established Clark Country.

Las Vegas once again boomed when the government approved a $165 million Hoover Dam project (was then known as Boulder Canyon) in 1928 located 40 miles away from the city. It provided jobs for thousand of locals and migrants; a tremendous boost to the infrastructure, especially abundant supply of power and water; and economic growth. The development and enlargement of the city had brought about the increase of illegal gambling popularity, even though, back to 1910, Nevada was the first state that was strictly against outlaw gambling. The illegal gambling flourished until the Great Depression in 1931 when the state needed to raise taxes for the state general fund and as the lucrative of gambling industry was so much that the Nevada Legislature approved a legalized gambling bill.

During the World War II while the country was preparing for the war, the government opened the 3-million-acer Las Vegas Aerial Gunnery School north of Las Vegas, originally intended to train B-29 gunners, it later became the training ground for the nation's ace fighter pilots. This military base brought tens of thousands of military personnel to Las Vegas during the war and after the end of the war also returned as civilians to take up permanent residency in Las Vegas. As well as the city's population increased, many lavishly decorated resort-hotels and gambling casinos began to appear.

The first remarkable hotel on the Strip was the El Rancho Vegas opened by a business man from Los Angeles in 1941. The next waves of investors, also from out of town, were mobsters like Bugsy Siegel, who built the 7-million Flamingo Hotel in 1946 which really hit the world stage. Bugsy was shot to death several months after the hotel's opening and the hotel then changed its owners continually, it is now owned and operated by the Hilton Hotel Group and is properly named the Flamingo Hilton. During the '50s, several aspects influenced the prosperity of Las Vegas, the most significant one are that the appearance of Liberace and Frank Sinatra and his 'rat pack' that brought more glamour and glitter to the town and attracted hoards of tourists. The advent of the cold war that increased nuclear weapons experiments in the nearby desert brought in even more military personnel who were looking for a break in casinos. Tourists were also coming for a picnic and a view of the atomic mushroom clouds from the frequent testing. In addition, during the same decade a young singer named Elvis Presley showed up at the New Frontier Casino.

Although the organized crime had been involving in financing hotels and casinos in Las Vegas for many years, in late 1950s to the early '60s, Robert F. Kennedy run a campaign against organized crime, the mobs influent on the city began to wane. As a result, investors in hotel business from all over the country became interested in Las Vegas and therefore boomed with numerous massive building constructions.

Started with the Desert Inn in 1950 by Wilbur Clark, a former hotel bellman in San Diego, California, followed by Sahara Hotel and Sands Hotel two years later, in 1952. In 1955, the Riviera Hotel became the first Strip high-rise with its nine-story building, before that the highest panoramic view had only been seen from the third floor of Desert Inn. At about the same time, the Moulin Rouge Hotel-Casino was the first entertainment that welcomed both black audiences and entertainers. Other resorts built during this period included the Royal Nevada, Dunes, Hacienda, Tropicana and Stardust hotels on the Strip, and the Downtown Fremont Hotel-Casino. The Royal Nevada was later absorbed into the adjoining Stardust Hotel property.

As many hotel-resorts with excellent facility were born during this period, entertainment became another competitive factor of the hotels. Stardust was the first hotel that broke the entertainment rule by introducing a stage spectacular, the Lido de Paris, imported from France. The success of the Lido encouraged the Dunes to engage Minsky's Follies in 1957, the first time the topless showgirls debuted on the Strip. Hotel-casinos began the race to become full-blown destination resorts for travelers, vacationers, gamblers, conventioneers and all member of the family. Theme parks and entertainment parks were added to the resorts, the first one was a circus-tent-shaped casino with midway games and rides for youngsters, Circus Circus, opened in 1968, which was later included hotel in 1972 and a water theme park in 1993. Mirage Hotel-Casino features a white tiger habitat, a dolphin pool, waterfall, and a man-made volcano in 1989, and added with Treasure Island in 1993.

At present, most old established hotel-casinos since the 50s exist no more, they were replaced by the bigger and better hotel-resorts or mega resorts featuring variety of attractions not only to gamblers but also to the youngsters of the family. Nowadays, Las Vegas became one of the country's most attractive tourist destinations drawing 33 million visitors every year, housing 19 of the world's 20 largest hotels, and earning over $US 5.25 billion in annual gaming revenue.