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History of the Las Vegas Strip

As happens with all famous places, and the farther back in time the beginnings stretch, mystery and intrigue surround the real history. Folklore melds into the facts and discrepancies begin to exist. Evidently, sometimes the truth is not glamorous or exciting enough and sometimes, facts just get skewed because the original players are dead. This is the case with the Las Vegas Strip.

Whether truth or misconceptions, tales about who started The Strip and why it was called The Strip fascinate us. We hear different versions of the same events but we do not question which is the most accurate. We love the mystery. Plus it is not right to mess with legend. The Strip is rife with gangster lore, celebrity glitz, and the wild west thus, we have myths surrounding the history of the Las Vegas Strip.

Following is a list of historical data in semi-chronological order of when the strip started, how it started, and any points where more than one fact seems to be present about the same event.



• Las Vegas Strip is a very small segment of the old Highway 91 which ran between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City
• Before being called The Strip, which is an unofficial name, the road's official names have been Highway 91, Fifth Street, and currently Las Vegas Boulevard
• Unofficially the same road has been called Arrowhead Highway, Los Angeles Highway, and Salt Lake Highway
• Before The Strip was known as a gambling venue, it was basically part of the mail route that the Mormons protected in the 1800s
• The Strip is actually on the outskirts of the city. The original nightclub-casino owners built their businesses outside the downtown area in an attempt to attract customers before they reached the actual downtown
• 1930 – Pair-O-Dice is opened by husband and wife Angelina and Frank Detra. The club was known for both its illegal alcohol and illegal gambling
• 1931 – Nevada Legislature legalizes gambling
• 1931 – The Red Rooster, a mile down the road from the Pair-O-Dice, is granted the first legal license for a casino in the county
• Because of the building of Hoover Dam, visitors were plenty so the nightclub-casinos thrived
• 1938 – Detras sell Pair-O-Dice to Guy McAfee, an ex-vice squad captain from LA
• and here is where one discrepancy in history occurs regarding how the name came to be:
• Version #1 – Guy McAfee first referred to Fifth Street as The Strip because of Sunset Strip in LA
• Version #2 – locals say that when tourists asked how to find the airport, they just pointed and said “down that strip”
• Who started The Strip and made it famous is another point where the story deviates:
• Version #1 – the most colorful version and the one in all the movies and if asked, the one people recite is that Bugsy Siegel founded the Strip by envisioning and opening The Flamingo
• Version #2 - W.R. Wilkerson III claims his father was the mastermind behind The Flamingo and that he actually bought the land and built the casino on advice from his friends Howard Hughes and Joseph Schenk
• 1941 – El Rancho Hotel is built and is considered the first casino resort
• celebrity entertainers are attracted to The Strip
• 1957 – the Dunes brings in topless dancers called Minsky's Burlesque show
• 1960s and 1970s - entertainers and singers continue to make individual venues famous
• 1968 - billionaire Kirk Kerkorian comes on the scene buying the Flamingo
• 1969 - Flamingo is opened as mega-resort called International Hotel, the largest hotel in the world
• 1973 – Kerkorian builds MGM Grand Hotel and Theme Park
• from there many establishments are either renovated and reinvented into themed venues such as the Circus Circus, Eiffel Tower, and Egyptian tombs or imploded to make way for new hotels, casinos, resorts.

The history of the Las Vegas Strip is closely aligned with the history of Las Vegas - read up on both if you want the full story!