About the Book

They were all there once. Dreamers, drifters, scoundrels, and sweethearts--whether working the crowd or keeping the back of the house stocked, everyone--from cowboys, innkeepers, movie stars, working stiffs and lucky bums as well as rule-breaking architects and artists who painted the night sky using neon once gathered there. They all come alive again in this story of the Las Vegas Strip during its first 25 years in a fascinating, very American intersection of show biz & commerce. 

From conception to implosion, you get the detailed histories of the hotels built during those formative years, including the El Rancho Vegas, Hotel Last Frontier, Flamingo, Thunderbird, Wilbur Clark's Desert Inn, Sahara, Sands, Royal Nevada, Riviera, and the Dunes. 

Included in these histories are architectural designs, the neon signage, and how each of the hotels evolved. This book also includes rarely seen, historic imagery. The dreamers, who saw the future like few others and who built these hotels, helped turn a five-mile stretch of blacktop highway into the Entertainment Capital of the World. This is the story of the first twenty-five years of the Classic Las Vegas Strip—how it began, and how it grew.