Talk:History of Las Vegas

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The Syndicate[edit]

It reads: "There was a push to annex the Strip by the City of Las Vegas, but The Syndicate used the Clark County Commissioners to pull a legal maneuver by organizing the Las Vegas Strip properties into an unincorporated township..." What syndicate? Or more specifically, what is THE Syndicate of which this article speaks? I think a citation needed is in order for this one. 98.221.133.96 (talk) 12:11, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Las Vegas[edit]

I'd like to see an article about the PEPCON blast of 1988, if anyone has the time. It was one of the major events of Vegas' local history in the '80s, even though in the long run all it did was shatter a few thousand windows. I actually added a mention of it to the Henderson, Nevada article already, but I wasn't sure how best to fit it into this one. --4.246.3.1 00:37, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Gragson background[edit]

I removed a completely unsourced description of Gragson as a criminally connected Jewish activist. Has Stormfront been all over this page?

Math challenged[edit]

The article says:

"On 3 April 1941, hotel owner...Three years later, on 30 October 1942."

Say what? Check dates & fix, somebody? Trekphiler 06:07, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Opinionated[edit]

I deleted "Bugsy was probably skimming off the top". Unless somebody can substantiate it (& nothing I've heard does...)... Trekphiler 06:09, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

=Mobbed up[edit]

If I could cite a source (...), I'd mention mafioso Tony Cornero (né Antonio Stralla) founded The Green Meadows, the first truly hi-class casino in Vegas, after his gambling ship, Lily, was raided. (The Green Meadows later burned down.) Cornero started construction on The Stardust before a fatal heart attack 31 July 1955. Trekphiler 06:14, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If I could cite a source (...), I'd also mention crooked LAPD Vice cop Guy McAfee & his partner founded The Golden Nugget, & accidentally led the Mafia to Vegas... Trekphiler 07:20, 18 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Howard Hughes[edit]

How can there be no mention of Howard Hughes in this article? He went on a 100 million dollar shopping spree to clean out the mob.

I find the description of the Mormon influence and history to be heavy handed and inflammatory. - Hardly represents a "neutral" point of view. Author has obvious axe to grind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grundle2224 (talk • contribs) 23:28, 20 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge into Las Vegas[edit]

While lengthy, Las Vegas's article is so short that the entire page layout is messy. Simplyianm (talk) 02:21, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mormons[edit]

I edited a line from '1947–1963: postwar boom and organized crime' which said that Bugsy Seigel was being financed in-part by the 'Mormon church'. Bugsy may have been financed by bankers who were Mormons, but the church was not financing him. A significant difference. Lonepeakgeek (talk) 14:55, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move[edit]

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved to History of Las Vegas. —Darkwind (talk) 03:06, 3 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]


History of the Las Vegas Valley → History of Las Vegas – I did this move a bit ago and got reverted with the argument that the content of this article predates the city. True, but also true of History of London, History of Seattle, History of Singapore, etc, since you need to go before the city to have a complete history. Finally, the main article is Las Vegas, not Las Vegas Valley, so the word "valley" doesn't belong. relisted--Mike Cline (talk) 14:03, 28 November 2012 (UTC)Ego White Tray (talk) 13:14, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. As you said you moved it, but to History of the Las Vegas. Second, the article has always been about the valley and contrary to your argument, the main article actually is Las Vegas Valley. The history of the valley covers three cities and about 10 unincorporated towns and it would be difficult if not impossible to separate these out. Moving to a name is closely tied to only one of these entities is very misleading for an encyclopedia. Other stuff exists is not a valid argument to take an action. But History of Singapore is probably an excellent example of why the valley name is the best option. Vegas is isolated and as such it operates and was developed much as an island. So the broader picture is the most accurate and informative. There is nothing wrong or misleading about the current name. Finally, if you think that Las Vegas Valley is not used, just click that link to see how many Google hits there are. It is almost 32,000,000, so it is a well used term. Vegaswikian (talk) 19:33, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A clear application of WP:COMMONNAME. Reliable sources almost universally talk about the "history of Las Vegas", not the "history of the Las Vegas Valley". Such sources also almost universally cover the history of the entire metropolitan area, not just events within city limits, so very few readers are likely to be confused or surprised by the fact that this article covers the whole Valley, even if the name would literally suggest otherwise. Toohool (talk) 23:03, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. I've lived in various parts of the city and valley for a decade. I can assert that while the "city" and the "valley" are significantly related, there's a strong argument for keeping these articles separate. Properly speaking, the city of Las Vegas does not include anything on the Strip, or in Summerlin, Henderson, Boulder City, North Las Vegas... we could go on and on. I could perhaps understand some sort of merge of the two owing to the shared history, but I haven't seen a good argument for it, nor a proposal for how to go about it. "History of Clark County" isn't an obvious topic for a reader to search. Simishag (talk) 06:03, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Keeping what articles separate? There is only one article about the history of Vegas, this is a discussion about what it should be called. Toohool (talk) 06:21, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Without any other article competing for it, the proposed title is more concise, common, and desirable. See these WorldCat results for plenty of books on the history of Las Vegas which don't distinguish between the city and the valley, at least not in the titles. I get that for locals, the valley/city distinction may be important, but for a global encyclopedia, I don't see any benefit to squabbling over these jurisdictional boundaries. --BDD (talk) 07:26, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • The problem here is that the city article is at the wrong place. If that were moved, then this article could also be moved as proposed. Otherwise, any moves equate the city with the valley which is not correct. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:12, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Be that as it may, there's something to be said for consistency. While the city is at Las Vegas, the article detailing that city's history should be at History of Las Vegas. --BDD (talk) 16:03, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Vegas, you are the only person on Wikipedia who thinks Las Vegas has the wrong title. There are plenty of move requests to attest to that fact. Ego White Tray (talk) 16:50, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per WP:UCN (use common names) and as the most concise and least ambiguous reflection of the article's contents. Cf. the History of New York City which includes material from before New York existed and covers areas outside of the city limits. —  AjaxSmack  04:54, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • NYC is a good or bad example depending on how you look at. That is a city that clearly drives the area economy, dominates in size and is surrounded by incorporated municipalities. Vegas is not that dominant in size, and gets maybe 5%-10% of the tourists to the valley. That is what many consider the business to be. It is surrounded by multiple unincorporated towns and simple unincorporated areas all of which are commonly called Vegas or Las Vegas. It's fun when you have a car accident in an unincorporated area out west. The insurance people on the phones don't understand that you can be driving on a road that is not part of a town! Vegaswikian (talk) 08:11, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • There are others, too, that come to mind. Sydney (fewer than 5% of inhabitants in the city limits) or London (fewer than 0.1% live in the City), for example. —  AjaxSmack  03:07, 12 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but this is partly a false argument. London is the name of the government region, which equates to the administrative county of Greater London (God only knows why they cannot have the same name!). The "square mile" is nearly always referred to as the City of London. Skinsmoke (talk) 07:36, 16 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: When people say, "Las Vegas", they often mean "Las Vegas and its immediate surroundings", maybe of which aren't in incorporated Las Vegas but have Vegas addresses pbp 01:00, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Exactly, but I would say 'most' and not 'often'. Since the city article is at the name space, then an article titled 'History of Las Vegas' should be about the city and not where most (95% or so) of the Vegas visitors go.
  • Oppose. The scope of the article is clearly way way outside of Las Vegas. Apteva (talk) 07:25, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Or it is actually what the history of a Las Vegas article should be. But yes, it is much more then the city and since the 40s the city has not been the major driver of the economy. I'm not totally opposed to the move, but a move of Las Vegas Valley to Las Vegas needs to happen at the same time. Vegaswikian (talk) 08:11, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • No it doesn't. Article title policy doesn't say to be bureaucratic about names. It doesn't say to hold official boundaries above common sense. It doesn't say to sabotage sensible move requests because the one you wanted didn't happen. Ego White Tray (talk) 15:10, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
        • Just to clarify, this is three or more regions that are being discussed, or have been discussed. The city limits of Las Vegas constitute a very tiny area. The Las Vegas Strip is an even smaller (larger?) area, that refers to the casino area. Greater Las Vegas includes Henderson etc. Las Vegas Valley, if it has information about the Nevada Test Site and the Hoover Dam, near Las Vegas, but by no stretch of the imagination inside Las Vegas. Apteva (talk) 04:42, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
          • And to further confuse the issue, neither Hoover Dam nor the Nevada Test Site are in the valley - both require going through mountain passes from Las Vegas. So, considering all the possible names you could call this, they only have a single thing in common, all contain "Las Vegas" Ego White Tray (talk) 15:59, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
            That was my impression from looking at them from google earth - mainly I was thinking that "Las Vegas" was not an apt description for the location of Hoover Dam and the test site. Near, Las Vegas, yes, but surely not "in" Las Vegas. Apteva (talk) 03:46, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would just like to point out that History of New York City discusses the Erie Canal, a location hundreds of miles from the city, not because anyone thinks it's in the city but because it's relevant and important to the city's history. So, when deciding what to include in an article called History of Las Vegas, we don't ask if something happened in the city limits (or what would someday be the city limits), but whether it is directly relevant to the history of the city. When viewing it that way, Hoover Dam and the Nevada Test Site clearly should be included in the history of the city article, even though those places are many miles from the city. Nearly everything that happened anywhere in Las Vegas Valley is relevant to the city's history, so on the relevance question, there really is no difference between the history of Las Vegas the city and Las Vegas the valley. Ego White Tray (talk) 04:33, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

All of which ignores the fact that your counter examples are for areas that are incorporated. Those examples do not map to regions that are mostly not incorporated. It is like comparing apples to oranges. Terminology in the latter is used based on the fact that most areas are not incorporated and hence the area terms have a much broader meaning then they would if everything was incorporated. A clear case of other stuff not applying. Vegaswikian (talk) 01:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Incorporation says more about the politics of a region than what a city represents. Limiting the History of London to the tiny area that is actually legally called London is crazy. The incorporated area doesn't mean that London is tiny, it means that it has odd politics. Same with Vegas and its exclusion of the strip, which is mostly to do with casino owners desire for lower taxes and in no way makes it any less Vegasy than places in city limits. Ego White Tray (talk) 02:50, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You have this strong desire to ignore the situation as it exists. The surrounding unincorporated area has done more for the name then then the city since at least the 40's when the strip started driving development in the valley. It may have started in the 30's with the development of the Boulder Strip and Boulder City. It you have a city and you normally deal with areas that are incorporated and enforce a strict naming convention, that model can not apply to unincorporated areas. The fact that the city has higher taxes, does not mean that it is what drove the history of the valley. In fact, that is probably a better case for minimizing the city. And your logic for the city ignores the fact that there are about 10 communities that have the common name of Las Vegas. As further proof, new GPSs no longer offer the city as the the first choice. Instead they offer something called the Vegas Metro Area and then when you insert a street address offer the actual town, albeit wrong in most cases. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The situation as it exists is based on a very simple fact: A city is not a line on a map. It is buildings, it is roads, it is commerce, it is people. Lawmakers can draw the line where they want, but the Strip will always be Vegas. Ego White Tray (talk) 03:59, 19 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You are totally incorrect since the city is, by definition, a line on a map drawn by politicians for whatever purpose they wish. The difference is that in some cases, a word is applied to a large area and also to a smaller city area. Arguing that the strip is Vegas, simply points out that Las Vegas applies to much more then the city. So unless the main article moves, it is inappropriate to move the history article which is about the valley. In fact the focus, as you mention above, is more on the strip then it is on the city. Vegaswikian (talk) 03:12, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Gass and Nevada[edit]

The article currently makes an unsourced claim that Octavius D. Gass "used his position as a legislator to have the territory around his ranch included in Nevada instead of Arizona". Having recently done some work on the Gass article, I can say with great certainty that Gass was not a supporter of his ranch becoming part of Nevada. In fact he twice joined with Arizona politicians to sent protests to the U.S. Congress about the territorial change. As the article's claim contradicts all sources I have seen dealing with the issue, I have tagged the line with {{dubious}}. --Allen3 talk 14:11, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Timeline of Las Vegas[edit]

What is missing from the recently created city timeline article? Please add relevant content. Contributions welcome. Thank you. -- M2545 (talk) 11:17, 18 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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POV?[edit]

...local police and Clark County Sheriff deputies were notorious for their heavy-handed tactics toward mobsters who "grew too big for their pants".

Sounds like someone defending the mob. I think we might say 'noted for their robust tactics'. Valetude (talk) 13:54, 11 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Origins Velella34 (talk) 08:05, 28 August 2020 (UTC)[edit]

RE: 3rd paragraph, 1st sentence; "In 1855, William Bringhurst led a group of 29 Mormon missionaries from Utah to the Las Vegas Valley. The missionaries built a 150-square-foot (14 m2) adobe fort..." Am I missing something? Since when can a space of "150-square-foot (14 m2)", basically the size of a smal family room, be considered a "fort" for any amount of people let alone 29 missionaries?

Article is Woefully Incomplete[edit]

How is this article missing so much information? Why is nearly everything unreferenced? There's no mention of Las Vegas being called the Mississippi of the West, for which it was famous, in reference to its historical appellation as a segregated city. No mention of the 5th Dimension or Lola Falana Stevenmitchell (talk) 22:38, 2 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, this article is due for some much needed research and at least second hand sourcing from books or the like. CR055H41RZ (talk) 12:05, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

inconsistent dates...[edit]

para 1: The settlement of Las Vegas, Nevada was founded in 1905......."

para 2: "The name Las Vegas was given to the city in 1829 ..."

In para 2, I've changed city to area, which is entirely more accurate. 2600:1700:EA01:1090:2DF9:38C9:E6DD:A69F (talk) 04:40, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Vegas Knights[edit]

The city has a hockey team that won the Stanley Cup in 2023. 24.120.55.2 (talk) 18:08, 13 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

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