Resort City In The Sunbelt, Second Edition

Las Vegas, 1930-2000

Eugene P. Moehring

• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780874176933
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Weltgeschichte

Resort City in the Sunbelt is a non-sensationalistic, scholarly account of Las Vegas from the building of the Hoover Dam to the construction of the MGM Grand Hotel. Historian Eugene Moehring provides a balanced view of the city's urban development. Although a unique city in many ways, Las Vegas has displayed characteristics common to other sunbelt cities across the western United States—including underfunded social services, low-density urbanization with a heavy reliance upon automobiles, a sluggish response to problems within minority communities, a preference for efficient, business-like government, and a mania for low taxes. The gaming and resort aspects are fully considered, but Moehring emphasizes the city as part of the continually expanding sunbelt. From this important study, historians will conclude that, despite some of its unusual traits, Las Vegas is much like other western cities and therefore deserves recognition as one of the fastest-growing centers in postwar America. In a new and expanded epilogue to this edition, Moehring looks at the major events of the three decades leading up to 2000 and their underpinnings.

1

The Federal Trigger

Las Vegas’s triumph as a world resort was never assured. Virtually no one in the 1920s would have expected the town to blossom into the metropolis that it is today. Lack of water, fertile land, productive mines, and heavy industry made it an unlikely candidate. But the same forces which forged the new west and lured millions of people to the sunbelt, also boosted Las Vegas. Reclamation projects, New Deal programs, defense spending, air conditioning, interstate highways, jet travel, right-to-work laws, low taxes—all of the factors that promoted Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and other sunbelt cities, helped Las Vegas, too. Of course, the latter developed more slowly at first and along different lines. Although railroading, manufacturing, and especially defense programs all contributed to local growth, Las Vegans did not create the usual trading entrepot or industrial town. Instead, like their counterparts in Miami Beach and later Honolulu, they built a resort city—and, more significantly, a resort city based upon casino gambling.

The resort emphasis evolved slowly, not becoming the town’s dominant business until the 1940s. It was only a decade earlier that Las Vegas had even begun moving in that direction. The national government was the key, just as it was throughout the sunbelt. Federal spending, and lots of it, triggered the rise of modern Las Vegas. Like towns across the sunbelt and west, Las Vegas benefited from a sudden outpouring of federal reclamation, relief, and after 1939, defense programs. More importantly, the dam builders, soldiers, and defense workers brought to town by Uncle Sam patronized the city’s fledgling casinos, laying the foundation for Las Vegas’s resort industry. Dam spending powered the early economy. Between 1930 and 1939, Washington pumped over $70 million into the area. Of this amount, $19 million went to build Boulder (later Hoover) Dam and Boulder City. In addition, Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal pledged millions more to outfit Las Vegas with new streets, sewers, and other improvements. By 1940, Hitler’s invasion of Europe brought new rounds of spending just as it had in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, and other sunbelt centers. Within two years, Las Vegas had an air base, a magnesium plant, and a new suburb to house defense workers. In just over ten years Las Vegas was transformed from a sleepy whistle-stop to a city with prospects.¹

Boulder Dam’s construction sustained the initial prosperity. Paradoxically, as New York, Chicago, and thousands of smaller towns reeled from the effects of the Great Depression, Las Vegas boomed as a dam construction center. The great project symbolized the national government’s dream of harnessing the west’s major rivers to control flooding and provide cheap water and power. Under the New Deal, Las Vegas became part of a larger story: the federal effort to combat massive unemployment and broaden the nation’s industrial base by developing southern and western natural resources.

Dam building provided a bracing stimulus for the growth-hungry town. Following passage of the Boulder Canyon Act in 1928, Las Vegas witnessed nothing short of a revolution: land values soared, population jumped, and construction skyrocketed. Why all this change? In one stroke, Hoover Dam magnified Las Vegas’s strategic importance. For a quarter century the town had prospered as a transshipment point, receiving ore and forwarding supplies to southern Nevada’s remote mining camps, while also serving as a through route for cargoes traversing the Los Angeles-Salt Lake rail corridor. The dam immediately multiplied Las Vegas’s economic assets, awarding the town a substantial water, power, and construction hinterland to the southeast. Blessed suddenly with these new advantages, Las Vegans took the initiative, improving their government, developing new industry, and pursuing New Deal funds to expand their town’s infrastructure.

Overnight, Las Vegas tried to shed its wild frontier image. The town put on its best face in June 1929 to greet Interior Secretary Raymond Wilbur and Commissioner of Reclamation Elwood Mead who came by railroad to examine the dam site and decide where to base the construction force. Buildings were repainted, streets were washed, and Block 16 actually shut down temporarily. The city even erected an arch across Fremont Street with a large sign welcoming Wilbur who played along, smiling at the crowd and delighting officials with endless compliments and grand predictions for the town’s future. But it was all in vain; privately, Wilbur had no intention of basing the huge construction force in Las Vegas. Instead, he preferred building a “government town” on land closer to the dam site. The Interior Department’s official announcement came a month later and struck many as a ringing condemnation of Las Vegas and all that it stood for. The stern announcement proclaimed that “it is the intention of the government that the bootlegger or other law violator shall not interfere with the well-being of its workmen assigned to the task. . . . Instead of a boisterous frontier town, it is hoped that here simple homes, gardens with fruit and flowers, schools and playgrounds will make this a wholesome American community.” The government wanted to avoid the rowdy, wide-open atmosphere so characteristic of traditional mining and railroad construction camps. Aside from morality, logistics also governed the decision. Las Vegas was simply too far from the construction site. Although the town was the perfect hub for routing supplies by rail or truck to the dam site, a sixty-mile daily round-trip for 5,000 construction workers was impractical. Though deprived of the payroll pie, Las Vegans still knew that their economy would profit handsomely from the millions of dollars’ worth of supplies expected to be shipped through and stored locally.²

Townsmen braced for the impending boom. In 1930 alone, even after the government decided to build Boulder City, Las Vegas developers planned forty new buildings. As population mushroomed from 5,200 to 7,500 in just one year, authorities scrambled to handle the growth. In a daring move, stockholders of Consolidated Power & Telephone split their company into two utilities. While the new Southern Nevada Power made plans to modernize its grid, Southern Nevada Telephone implemented an immediate program to expand its network and add the city’s first long-distance service. The city commission approved a series of municipal improvements, including the installation of ornamental streetlights, the purchase of modern sanitation trucks, adoption of the community’s first zoning ordinance, expansion of the police department, construction of a new high school (approved by voters in a 1929 bond election) and extension of the original 1911 sewer system into the town’s newer neighborhoods. These programs, together with Washington’s promise of a large federal building and post office downtown, signified the dawn of a new age for southern Nevada.³

Aside from these improvements, Hoover Dam laid the foundation for a metropolitan growth by creating a new suburb southeast of town. To be sure, the optimism sweeping Las Vegas in 1930 was shared by a string of camps along the Colorado. As early as 1930, unemployed men, hopeful of securing a job on the dam, came with their families and erected tents, cardboard shanties, and other primitive housing along the riverbanks. In those first days, conditions were primitive and the heat almost unbearable. Families soaked bed sheets in the river to cool themselves while sleeping at night. Escape from the isolation was also difficult, since there were as yet no paved roads to Las Vegas. Contributing further to the gloom were snakes, lizards, little food, and no medical care. Conditions were hardly better in 1931 at Cape Horn, a barracks-like structure built high atop the canyon walls for those drilling the dam’s diversion tunnels. Few modern conveniences eased the strain for these early crews who began work months before the construction of Boulder City.⁴

For many people on this rugged frontier thirty miles from Las Vegas, Boulder City was built none too soon. On March 16, 1931, five days after the government awarded the dam contract to Six Companies, Inc., work began on the temporary camp to house the men who would build the town. Two weeks earlier on March 1, Las Vegas paving contractor Pat Cline had begun paving the Boulder Highway, linking his town with the proposed Boulder City. Construction of the latter formally began in April based on a design prepared by noted Denver city planner S. R. DeBoer. Although topography and budget restraints forced some modifications, the Interior Department generally followed DeBoer’s suggestions about the size of homes and lots, the street system, utility networks, and location of government and administration buildings. Blueprints called for a community capable of handling up to 5,000 people. Plans provided for a hospital, general store, recreation hall, commissary, and plenty of housing. Six Companies, the dam’s major contractor, built 250 one-room cottages for married couples ($15 monthly rent), 260 two-room houses ($19), 123 three-room houses ($30), and 14 other buildings ranging from three to five rooms each. Single men lived in 8 two-story dormitory buildings which dominated the residential center of town. Food was served at the Anderson Brothers Mess Hall where employees used their “meal tickets” three times a day. A soda fountain and lunch counter served the town’s massive recreation hall where the men gathered to use the pool tables and gym. As the community grew, additional facilities became available. By February 1933, residents could play at the new Boulder City golf course southeast of town, or take the ever-popular ride to Las Vegas.⁵

Municipal government also came quickly. From the beginning, federal control of the town was complete. The first show of strength followed an August 31 strike by Wobblies and other “union agitators,” when U.S. marshalls secured the reservation with a fence and gate on the Boulder Highway. Guards searched all cars and only people with official permits were allowed in. Strike leaders were immediately discharged and, except for a brief walkout in 1935, the city was never again torn by labor turbulence. With 42,000 applications for less than 6,000 jobs, management had the upper hand. The government tightened its control further in October 1931 with the arrival of Sims Ely, a skilled administrator and martinet, who assumed the duties of city manager. Ely served for ten years, settling domestic disputes and firing drunkards while imposing a strict bible-belt morality upon the town. Though Ely’s dictatorial policies were often controversial, they nevertheless maintained an atmosphere which promoted peace and productivity.⁶

Between 1931 and the completion of the dam in 1935, Boulder City efficiently provided for the needs of workers and their dependents. Unfortunately for Las Vegas, retailing was no exception to this rule. In addition to several private shops, the massive Boulder City Company Store (a subsidiary of Six Companies, Inc.) catered to residents. At the time, it was the largest department store in Nevada and conveniently accepted shopper’s payments in U.S. currency or Six Company scrip. The latter, however, was not transferable. This, together with the store’s practice of advancing credit to workers in company scrip, eventually sparked a fiery protest from Las Vegas merchants who objected to this “unfair competition.” Eventually, these businessmen, anxious for a share of the dam’s $500,000 monthly payroll, successfully pressured federal officials into allowing workers to be paid in U.S. currency. Of course, the Interior Department responded to many of Las Vegas’s concerns about Six Companies’ policies by insisting that Boulder City was only a temporary town. Following the dam’s completion, it was expected that the administration and municipal buildings would become the permanent headquarters of a small Bureau of Reclamation crew with perhaps an office or two for California Edison and other utilities connected with power generation. But it soon became apparent that many workers wanted to stay, continuing to rent their homes until the government agreed to sell. And, why not? By 1932, the town had its own school, cemetery, police station, post office, and train station. In fact, as the Anderson Mess Hall prepared to close for good on New Year’s Eve 1935, dozens of prospective merchants were already waiting for business licenses to cash in on the expected tourist trade.⁷

Everyone knew the tiny community would become a popular tourist mecca. From its inception, the dam had attracted thousands of visitors. Almost 100,000 came during the first full year of construction in 1932 while double that amount visited Las Vegas. In 1933, the dam drew 132,000 people and Las Vegas 230,000. Recognizing the magnetic value of the new “world wonder,” the latter’s chamber of commerce began to bill Las Vegas as “the gateway to Hoover Dam.” And it was; by 1934 the numbers ballooned to 265,000 and 300,000, respectively. Throughout the 1930s, 75 percent of those visiting Hoover Dam also stopped in Las Vegas, and these totals grew every year. The reason was obvious: Hoover Dam was a tribute to modern engineering. Towering 726 feet high, it was 300 feet taller than any other dam in the world. Its mere construction was a spectacle. As early as May 1931, visitors watched in awe as hundreds of workers struggled to build the coffer dam, lay Boulder’s foundation, and drill the tunnels to divert the Colorado around the construction site. The work force grew to 4,200 by April 1932 before peaking at 5,251 in July 1934. Of course, the story of the dam’s construction and the trials faced by the men who built it lies beyond the focus of this book, but their work literally reclaimed the southwest and rescued Las Vegas from a whistle-stop fate.⁸

In every way the dam transformed the little desert town. The physical dimension was obvious, as warehouses and yards multiplied along the railroad tracks north and south of Fremont Street to meet the demand for building supplies. Las Vegas also became an administrative hub. Even though the town had failed to secure the base camp for the construction force, it nevertheless functioned as the hiring center. In the fall of 1930 Leonard Blood, the superintendent of the U.S. Employment Office in Las Vegas, began processing job applications for work on the project. Within days the hiring hall on North Main Street began filling up with hopeful applicants lured from around the country by prospects of good-paying jobs. The influx of workers immediately overwhelmed the town’s limited housing stock. Within weeks a “Hoover City” of shacks, tents, and shanties sprang up on North Fifth Street near the Woodlawn Cemetery. Although many men eventually gained employment, thousands more were disappointed. The dam brought unprecedented prosperity and notoriety to Las Vegas while also inundating the town with thousands of desperate people from around the nation. Ill equipped to handle the massive relief effort, local government buckled under the strain. In 1932 and 1933 the Clark County indigent fund was depleted. City funds were also consumed to the point where the mayor and other city officials took voluntary pay cuts until newly elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt finally established a camp to feed the homeless in September 1933. By January 1934, New Deal agencies would spend an average of $75,000 per month for relief and public works programs to relieve the situation.⁹

Despite the recession for a portion of the city’s population, most residents enjoyed unparalleled prosperity. From the beginning, investors recognized that Boulder Dam would enlarge Las Vegas. In 1930, developers built over $1.2 million worth of new structures. Many were small houses whose rooms could be easily partitioned off to form several apartments. Dozens of landlords were local businessmen who merely speculated in lots located in the newer additions south and east of town. Some tracts were also built by investors and recent migrants from California, Arizona, and Utah. Aside from dwellings, the construction boom also included new office and warehouse structures. Between 1930 and 1932, many of the old wooden frame buildings downtown yielded to taller, more substantial successors. The Union Pacific, for example, upgraded its facilities by spending $400,000 for yard improvements and a more spacious terminal while local Masons erected a modern temple valued at $110,000. Clark County commissioners approved an $80,000 loan for a courthouse addition designed to service the increased caseload resulting from the local population increase.

Everyone knew that even if Boulder City housed the work force, the dam would still accelerate the urbanization of Las Vegas. The rippling effects of increased wholesaling, retailing, warehousing, administration, and tourism would inevitably boost the railhead’s population, thereby forcing the expansion of the business and residential districts. To prepare for these changes, the city commission in 1931 authorized bond issues of $165,000 to pave, widen, and extend existing streets and $150,000 to expand the current sewer system into the town’s new additions. At the same time, the city was completing a large new high school to handle the growing number of students expected from Boulder City and the nascent subdivisions on the edges of Las Vegas. Expanded medical care was another priority. In December 1931, local physicians met that challenge by opening the modern, new Las Vegas Hospital at Eighth and Ogden. In addition to these local efforts, Washington also contributed to the town’s physical plant by spending $300,000 for an impressive post office. This project was related to the construction of the new federal building in City Hall Park, which confirmed Las Vegas as the administrative center for all federal offices in southern Nevada. This move, combined with the town’s county seat status, added a valuable administrative dimension to the local economy for years to come, as legal offices, accounting firms, and related businesses clustered around the downtown area.¹⁰

Aside from these improvements, the dam inspired the enlargement of the business district surrounding Fremont Street. Much of the new downtown construction involved hotels, as Nevada’s recent legalization of gambling teamed with the population growth occasioned by the dam to fuel a recreation boom. Anxious to control and derive revenues from the state’s substantial underground gaming industry, Nevada’s legislature legalized gambling in February 1931. The move energized the economies of both Reno and Las Vegas. Of course, legalized gambling had flourished in Nevada long before 1931: even before statehood and despite the best efforts of mining districts to outlaw it, gambling had been a popular tradition on Nevada’s frontier. Beginning in 1869 and for the next forty years, legalized gaming flourished in the silver state until a wave of reform sentiment during the so-called Progressive Era resulted in a 1911 law closing all casinos. Public outcries led to a 1915 amended version exempting card games (where the deal changed after each hand) and slot machines (provided the prize was not monetary). For the next fifteen years the law was lightly enforced. By the early 1930s, the depressed state was ready to legalize the industry again. While license revenues were an incentive, state leaders at the time were more concerned with controlling the substantial underground business which existed. Fear of national reaction was no longer a major concern, because Nevada already enjoyed a maverick image, thanks to its liberal marriage and divorce laws.¹¹

When the legislature legalized gambling again in 1931, it awarded cities and counties full power to collect taxes and issue gaming licenses. In Las Vegas, like Reno, major club owners, anxious to retain their customers, wanted to be licensed. Clark County commissioners first issued gaming licenses for slot machines only; permits for other games came later. The first license went to J. H. Morgan and Mayme Stocker, longtime operators of the famed Northern Club on Fremont Street. Tony Cornero’s Meadows Club on the Boulder Highway followed soon after. For its part, the city of Las Vegas acted cautiously, issuing only six licenses in April 1931. While the number of licensees was eventually expanded, early permits were mostly restricted to slot machines and even their number was strictly regulated. Obviously, city fathers did not foresee gaming as the town’s economic savior—even the location of gaming clubs was limited. The municipality passed a red-lining ordinance confining the industry to Fremont Street between First and Third streets. Subsequent years saw the district expanded to Fifth Street and beyond, but (except for the Moulin Rouge in 1955) town authorities were careful to prevent casino activity from spilling over into residential neighborhoods. Despite the restrictions, gambling quickly became a dynamic new industry in Las Vegas, ...