Vegas has become entertainment mecca

When I think of Las Vegas, Nev., images of bright neon signs, Elvis impersonators, water fountains with ever-flowing cascades, stretch limousines carrying celebrities decked out in diamonds, tuxes, and gowns, and the sound of coins being dropped into poker machines immediately come to mind.

Also referred to as “Sin City,” about any activity imagined can be found in Vegas, and, as the popular adage goes, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” It arguably is America?s No. 1 playground for adults. Still, there is a weekly television series titled ?Las Vegas,? starring actor James Caan, that does an apt job of portraying modern-day Vegas.

One popular account of how Las Vegas became the party-gambling mecca it is today is this: Following World War II, mobster Ben ?Bugsy? Siegel had a vision out in the hot Nevada desert and ?decreed that here would be the Monte Carlo of the Americas, the place where high rollers and penny-ante operators alike would come to strike it rich, all the while leaving their money for the mob.?

Siegel enticed fellow gangsters Meyer Lanksy and Charles “Lucky” Luciano to invest a little over $1 million in building a plush gambling casino to be named The Flamingo. However, the cost of The Flamingo eventually amounted to approximately $6 million. Lansky, Luciano, and others became highly skeptical about Ben?s desert dream and a special meeting was held in Havana, Cuba.

Those attending, including Lansky and Luciano, concluded that Siegel was more interested in hanging out with movie stars in Hollywood than making money, and, too, he possibly was skimming some of their investment money and salting it away in a secret Swiss bank account.

Though The Flamingo did open for business Dec. 26, 1946, it initially was a financial flop. Bugsy Siegel was found dead June 20, 1947, at a home he shared with Virginia Hill in Beverly Hills, Calif., his body riddled with multiple gunshot wounds. One theory has it that Hill, who was not at the Beverly Hills home when Siegel was gunned down, stole the money Siegel owed his fellow mobsters and fled to Europe. Hill died in March 1966, at age 50, in Salzburg, Austria. She supposedly committed suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.

All Hollywood and gangster talk aside ? factual though it might be ??there is another story about how Vegas came to be, one I wasn?t aware of until I watched a recent episode of ?City Confidential.?

Gambling had been legal in Nevada since 1911. The construction of the Hoover Dam, named after President Herbert Hoover (also known as the Boulder Dam), began in 1931 and was completed in 1936. While Hoover Dam was being constructed, a horde of tradesmen migrated to the area for work. Remember, this took place during the era known as the Great Depression, and construction of Hoover Dam provided a tremendous boost to the American economy. Since Hoover Dam was located only about 30 miles from Las Vegas, and the men working on the dam had full pockets and were looking for action, it is little wonder that they began hanging out in Vegas during their off hours, where they could quench their thirsts, socialize and sometimes pick up a few extra bucks gambling.

If there never had been a Hoover Dam, there might never have been a Las Vegas ? the glamorous, mega-money-making version of today, anyway. Further, if mobsters Meyer Lansky and Lucky Luciano could have seen down the stream of time, Ben ?Bugsy? Siegel might have died of natural causes at a ripe old age, instead of being assassinated at the young age of 41.

Mike Vinson is a Warren County columnist who can be reached at [email protected].