Las Vegas

Lots of stories have been told about how the shinning star in the dessert, Las Vegas, came to exist. The fact is that Las Vegas was actually established as a "watering hole" along the Old Spanish Trail. The artesian wells in the area created an oasis in the desert.

Brigham Young assigned 30 Church of Latter Day Saints missionaries to Las Vegas in 1855 with the intention of converting the Paiute Indian population to Mormonism. The plan didn't work out very well. The missionaries stayed a while, but they abandoned Las Vegas in 1857.

In 1905 Las Vegas was designated a "railroad town." The land owned by Senator William A. Clark to the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was auctioned off in what is now downtown Las Vegas.

Gambling was legalized in Las Vegas in 1931. Nothing much happened for a few years, but then in 1946 Bugsy Siegel opened the famous and infamous Flamingo Hotel on what is now called simply "the Strip." The Strip is a four-mile section of Las Vegas Boulevard South. Today some of the world's largest casinos, hotels, and resorts are located on the Strip.

Every entertainer plays Las Vegas at some point in their career. It is a sort of "right of passage" in the entertainment industry to play Las Vegas. You've "arrived" when you appear as a headliner on the Strip in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Strip held the title of "the world's highest grossing gambling center in the world" with no competition until 2006 when Macau, China, beat it out. There still isn't any doubt, however, that Las Vegas is where the world of entertainment gets its life blood.

People who don't gamble go to Las Vegas because they can see some of the best entertainment in the entire world there!