Online Nevada Encyclopedia

Meyer Lansky

Riviera Hotel

Originally to be called the Casa Blanca, the Riviera hotel project languished in the early 1950s as its five partners, mostly from Miami, ran into licensing problems after the Nevada Tax Commission learned that one of its applicants had ties to the infamous mobster Meyer Lansky. In 1953, the commission approved a new set of partners, including Harpo and Gummo Marx of the Marx Brothers comedy group.

El Cortez Hotel-Casino

[VR Morph by Howard Goldbaum.]

When it opened in 1941, the El Cortez Hotel-Casino was considered the finest such establishment in downtown Las Vegas. It was the brainchild of Marion Hicks, who migrated to Las Vegas when authorities shut down Southern California's gambling operations.

Caesars Palace

Jay Sarno, owner of the Cabana Motel chain, stopped in Las Vegas in the early 1960s while on a trip to scout a new location for one of his motels in Northern California. Sarno, who wanted to build a large resort hotel someday, liked the cheap land and potential he saw on the Las Vegas Strip.

Bugsy Siegel and the Flamingo Hotel

Flamingo Hotel owner Billy Wilkerson and mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel had been friendly since the mid-1930s, when Siegel was a regular at Wilkerson's famous Los Angeles nightclub, Ciro's on the Sunset Strip. By 1946, the long-time member of organized crime in New York and Los Angeles was receiving hefty monthly fees from bookmakers for a wire service that transmitted horse racing results.

Billy Wilkerson

William R. "Billy" Wilkerson was the original developer of the Flamingo Hotel, considered by historians the most important and influential resort to open on the fledgling Las Vegas Strip in the 1940s. The importance of his role, however, is often overshadowed in popular history by a partner in the project, the gangster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.

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