Give the Gift of Las Vegas History

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!

 

Hard to believe that at one time the Las Vegas Strip was small enough for just one exit off

the new interstate highway.  And a mighty confusing one at that.  Ahh, for the days of 1969.

 

Photos courtesy of Life Magazine/Google Archive

 

Las Vegas Memories courtesy of Life Magazine

 

In its heyday it was called the Mirage.  The motel sat on the Highway 91 aka the highway to Los Angeles.

With its pool sited in front of the motel, passing motorists could look over and see swimmers enjoy a cool dip in the aqua water on a hot summer day.  It was a great example of roadside architecture.

When Steve Wynn decided to build his first hotel in the mid-1980s, he decided to call it the Mirage.  He had to buy the rights to the name from the owners of the motel.  A deal was made and Mirage Motel became the Glass Pool Inn.

Its distinctive pool graced the roadside until the spring of 2005 when the motel and the pool were demolished.  It is now an empty lot.

Showgirls take a moment to play a slot machine hoping Lady Luck will smile upon them.

 

Keno players hoping for that lucky number.

 

Photos courtesy of the Life Magazine/Google Archive

Happy Holidays from Classic Las Vegas

 

We want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.  It has been an eventful year at Classic Las Vegas and we appreciate all of you who have helped make this an incredibly successful blog. 

Personal shout-outs to our preservation buddies that helped staunch the flow of destruction and the loss of our history. 

To Jack LeVine at VeryVintageVegas,

Paco Alvarez, MaryJOY, Pam Hartley and Josh Giedel who along with Jack and me helped make the grass-roots organization SavetheHuntridge have a successful ending.  (We were even 2008 heroes in City Life.  To Eli Mizrachi the owner of the Huntridge for having a vision. 

To Dennis McBride and the crew at the Nevada State Museum (including recently retired Curator of Education, Barbara Slivac) for helping to bring history alive via our Roundtable Discussions.

To Marcel Parent, Jennifer Jacobi, the crew at the Springs Preserve for giving me the opportunity to do historical Roundtable Discussions each month at the site where Las Vegas really began.

To our always growing audience that comes out each month to the Springs to hear history the way it really was from the men and women who were there!

To Allen Sandquist for his delightful images.

To the Friends of Classic Las Vegas for keeping the focus on our too-quickly fading past.

But most of all, to all of you who have written over the year to let me know how much you enjoy this blog and your support for our efforts to preserve all that we can of 20th Century Las Vegas.


HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND MAY 2009 BE ANOTHER GREAT YEAR!!!!