A young showgirl shows off while sitting on the diving board of the pool at the fabled Sands Hotel.

Here at Classic Las Vegas we realize that the Holidays are almost here. If you have friends or family who love history (especially 20th Century Las Vegas history) we hope we can help with some gift ideas:

In the last year, we have helped save the Huntridge Theater by working with the Save the Huntridge grass roots organization and the property owner to help ensure that the 1940's Charles Lee facade does not get destroyed.

We helped save Las Vegas pioneer Charles "Pop" Squires house from being destroyed by developers.

Brought attention to the destruction of the Las Vegas High School neighborhod. This neighborhood is on the Historic Register and yet, houses keep getting destroyed for McOffices.

We worked with the Atomic Age Alliance and VeryVintageVegas to try and save Maude Frazier Hall, the first building on the campus of UNLV.

We participated in various Historic Preservation Month activities as well as the Historic Preservation gathering in Boulder City this past summer and the inaugural Historic Preservation Summit this past October.

Ways you can help us continue to do good works:

1. Give a friend or loved one a year's membership (it's tax-deductible) for the Friends of Classic Las Vegas. Our group is dedicated to helping preserve the 20th Century history of Las Vegas. We hold monthly meetings and work with other community groups to help preserve not only buildings and signs of our past. Through our Archive Project, we are the one group dedicated to helping preserve the stories and memories of the men and women who helped build Las Vegas into the Entertainment Capital of the World and make the Las Vegas of today possible.

To become a member or give the gift of membership click here:

/join-today-become-a-fclv-membe/

2. Make a tax-deductible donation to the Friends of Classic Las Vegas. We know that times are tough and the economic crisis is at the forefront of everyone's thoughts. But historic preservation is important to support even in these lean times. Your contribution helps save Las Vegas history and we all know how important that is.

To make a tax-deductible donation to the FCLV click here and scroll down to the middle of the page:

http://classiclasvegas.squarespace.com/join-today-become-a-fclv-membe/

The Friends of Classic Las Vegas is a recognized 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated to preserving Las Vegas history.

3. Do you enjoy this site and all the history that we have written about? The History of Fremont Street, the History of the Original Strip Hotels, the photo galleries, the historic entries? We hope you do and you can help support this site by making a donation. We try to update this site every couple of days with interesting stories not only on preservation issues and historic sites but on what is happening in modern Las Vegas as well. We try to include photos, especially the historic ones, as often as we can. In the new year, we will be posting video clips and podcasts as well from our historic Archive project. This site is, as you can imagine, labor and time intensive but we try to bring the real history of our town to our audience. We appreciate the time that people spend here as well as the comments they leave for us.

You can help us by making a donation today for the maintenance, care and handling of this site by clicking here: (scroll down to the donation button)

http://www.classiclasvegas.com/contribute/contributors.htm

4. Buy our DVDs! They make great gifts for anyone interested in the real history of Las Vegas. "The Story of Classic Las Vegas" is a first-person narrative documentary that lets the men and women who made the history here tell the story.

http://www.classiclasvegas.com/coolstuff/forms/merch_order.htm

The "Tribute to Don English" is a wonderful look into the photographer who snapped many of the photos that not made Las Vegas but many of the ones in our collective memory.

http://www.classiclasvegas.com/coolstuff/forms/merch_order.htm

Whether it's for the holidays, birthdays or any special occasion, give the gift of history. You won't regret it. We've got some great things coming up for this site in the New Year and we look forward to sharing them with you! If you haven't subscribed to the site, please do so you don't miss out on all the great historic information we have coming up!