Las Vegas: A Centennial History

7: City and Strip: Laying a Metropolitan Foundation

A S T H E 1 9 5 0 S B E G A N , I T WA S O B V I O U S that tourism and defense spending would be the two industries that would drive the growth of Las Vegas and its emerging metropolitan area. City, county, and state o≈cials would spend much of the decade courting the Pentagon and the Atomic Energy Commission (aec), using their congressional delegation to do it. But tourism would receive most of the attention . In a determined eΩort to improve LasVegas’s accessibility and allure, local politicians and businessmen worked to increase the number of resorts, build a spacious convention center, expand the airport into a jetport , and prepare for the arrival of Interstate 15. Their success stimulated new rounds of growth that enlarged the city and suburban populations as well as the government budgets needed to service them. For proof that Las Vegas was spreading out in the postwar years, look no further than where its residents did their shopping. The retail chains, resorts, and other new businesses continued to locate not only downtown, but also in the newer suburbs. J. C. Penney opened a new store on Fremont and Fifth Streets, and Cornet andWoolworths enlarged their downtown emporiums. But in little more than a decade, Woolworths and J. C. Penney would open much larger stores on Maryland Parkway south of Desert Inn Road in the county suburbs. A major indication that retail was moving away from Fremont Street and out to the city’s periphery occurred in 1950 when Safeway opened a large store on East Charleston near Maryland Parkway. Other stores headed out of the Fremont Street area, lining Commerce, Main, and other streets southward to Charleston Boulevard and beyond. 7CITY AND STRIP Laying a Metropolitan Foundation Increased banking facilities also reflected the growth of the city and the suburbs beyond. First State Bank, founded in 1905, responded to the suburban trend by selling its landmark building on the northeast corner of First and Fremont. New owners demolished the structure in 1958 to make way for the Birdcage Casino, which Del Webb later incorporated into the Mint. John S. Park’s old bank became involved with suburban branch banking as it was absorbed into the large system that became First National , First Interstate in the 1970s, and Wells Fargo in the 1990s, with o≈ces across the entire valley. C I T Y A N D S T R I P 133 By 1950, Fremont Street near the depot had become mostly a gaming center, although a few stores can be seen mixed in. Note that the bus depot was nearby, and that a municipal park with grass and trees sat outside the depot where the Plaza Hotel is now. Special Collections, UNLV Libraries L A S V E G A S 134 DuringWorldWar II, First National Bank was formed, and other small banks came in the 1950s to serve the valley’s growing population. The most significant new financial institution of the decade was the Bank of Las Vegas, created in 1954 by a group of local businessmen (including Nate Mack and his son Jerry) and some out-of-state (primarily Utah) investors. This venture, soon headed by E. Parry Thomas, became the first bank to loan or negotiate major loans for casino-resort construction in southern Nevada. Thomas aggressively sought financing even from such notorious figures as Teamster Union president Jimmy HoΩa. The bank (later renamed Valley Bank, later absorbed by the Bank of America) was crucial to raising development and construction money for key city and especially Strip properties in the 1950s and 1960s. This was vitally important, because virtually no banks would loan casinos money until the late 1970s, when Atlantic City’s success finally made it socially acceptable for eastern lending institutions to finance casino construction projects. The gaming industry, however, was not the only stimulus for development . Government at all levels was another source of money for metropolitan expansion in the 1950s. In fact, new government buildings symbolized Las Vegas’s growing importance and the expanding county, state, and federal presence in town. In 1958, the new Clark County CourtNate Mack was one of the most important leaders of Las Vegas from his arrival in the 1920s until his death in 1965. He invested in several Strip and downtown casinos and was a major...