In October 1947, Marion Hicks, a Los Angeles contractor and a partner in Las Vegas' El Cortez Hotel and Casino, and Clifford Jones, Nevada's lieutenant governor, began construction on the Thunderbird Hotel. The site they had purchased sat on the fledgling Las Vegas Strip on Highway 91 across from the El Rancho Vegas, and about a mile north of the one-year-old Flamingo. Hicks and Jones completed the Thunderbird in September 1948, and despite losing $145,000 to craps players on opening night, it became a financial success.