Las Vegas: UnNatural Relations in Las Vegas I

I flew into Las Vegas last week. It was my third visit to Las Vegas in the last 12 months and each time I arrive at the McCarran Airport, I immediately sense that there is something “unnatural” about Las Vegas.  Something about it just doesn’t feel quite right. And I am not really sure why.

Founded as a railroad town back in 1905, Las Vegas has made its mark as a place of illicit desire, a refuge from the laws and values that have held sway in the rest of puritan America.  The nation’s fastest growing city is comprised, not of offices or banks, but of casinos operating 24 hours a day, raking in profits from an activity outlawed almost anywhere else in the world. 

In 1890, Nevada was the lowest populated state in the union with a population well under 100,000.  There was talk at the time about Nevada becoming part of California and abolishing Nevada all together. Nevada lacked the resources that other states had; it was so arid that it lacked enough water to develop industries. In the end, what saved Nevada was its historic tolerance for sin. And so gambling, whoring and drinking became the way you survived in the desert. 

Little has changed in 120 years. Las Vegas is still based on the commercialization of desire, a city where the only currency is currency. As long as you have the chips, nobody cares what your race is, your color, your gender, your sexual orientation. Everybody is the same until you’re out of money. And then when you’re out of money you’re just out.

And money – or the sound of money is everywhere. The first thing you hear when you walk up the ramp from your plane is the clatter of slot machines. You can’t walk into a Seven Eleven or an AM/PM or anyplace else without there being slots. Even the grocery stores have slots. And I think that is what bothers me. Not the slots per se, but the unbridled optimism that they represent. The promise of the future. A bet on the future. “Come On”, the flashing Sirens sing – one more spin of the wheel, one more quarter – and your life might change. Or at least for a few moments.

If you think about it, you can’t have gambling without optimism. And there is a kind of structural optimism that forms the foundation of Las Vegas. Who would build a city, situated miles from no where, in the middle of a desert filled with snakes and serpents and all matters of evil?  The sane man would not be remiss to ask himself why on earth would you settle here? Because it is not a sensible place to build a city. It really is not. 

History tells us that a young Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera is the first person of European ancestry to beat the odds in Las Vegas. Mexican trader Antonio Armijo, leading a 60-man party along the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles in 1829, veered from the accepted route. While Armijo’s caravan was camped about 100 miles northeast of present day Las Vegas, Rivera rode west into the unexplored desert in search of water. Two weeks later, he hit the jackpot and discovered an artesian spring in a valley that was eventually to take on the name of “The Meadows” or Las Vegas in Spanish.

Some 16 years after Rivera’s discovery, General Stephen Kearny led the Grand Army of the West into the town’s central plaza and demanded that the Alcalde, or mayor, join him in addressing the townspeople. At that time, Las Vegas,  was a small settlement of adobe houses set among rustling cornfields.  Kearny climbed a rickety ladder to the flat roof of one of the adobe buildings facing the plaza and announced to the collected citizens that by the orders of President James Polk he was absolving them from their allegiance to the Mexican government and claiming their country on behalf of the United States. And so began Las Vegas’s descent into sin.

The moral decline was significantly hastened by the arrival of the railroad in the summer of 1904. By 1890 railroad developers had determined the water-rich Las Vegas Valley would be a prime location for a stop facility and town and so in 1902 the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, (later known as the Union Pacific) purchased a 110 acre tract centered on what is today Las Vegas Boulevard.  The railroad laid out a town, held a land auction and on May 15, 1905 the city was born. 

The tent town called Las Vegas sprouted saloons, stores and boarding houses. The boom-years for Las Vegas wouldn’t begin until after the 1931 completion of Boulder Dam but the attractions of liquor, prostitution and gambling were recognized early on. The center for these activities was an area known as Block 16, one of two blocks (there were 40 in the original town) that the founding town fathers in their wisdom licensed to serve liquor without restriction. It quickly grew to sell women as well. 

Block 16 catered to the repair yard workers and miners, but weary travelers journeyed to the saloons for refreshment while their trains stopped in the town for a 45 minute layover. The Double O, Red Onion, Arcade, and Arizona Club served 10-cent shots, hosted poker, faro, and roulette, and sported cribs out back for bar customers with the urge. The Arizona Club was the poshest with a with a glass front, a $20,000 mahogany bar, and a second story for the convenience of the ladies of the night and their gentlemen. 

Despite the occasional spirited civic campaign to eliminate them, Block 16’s activities survived numerous challenges over the years. At midnight, Oct. 1, 1910, a strict anti-gambling law became effective in Nevada. The Nevada State Journal newspaper in Reno reported: “Stilled forever is the click of the roulette wheel, the rattle of dice and the swish of cards. “Forever” lasted less than three weeks. Ten years later, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution went into effect, banning the transport and sale of alcohol throughout the country. During the thirteen years of Prohibition, the saloons on Block 16 operated and sold alcoholic drinks in secret as did other so-called “speakeasies” around the United States. 

The local sex industry also managed to survive the tidal wave of Progressive-era brothel shutdowns that re-shaped cities such as Denver, San Francisco and Sacramento. The wave did touch Las Vegas during the ’20s, however, when a grand jury instructed city commissioners that “occupants of houses of ill fame not be allowed on the streets, unless properly clothed” – an attempt to discourage the scantily clad women from sitting in second-floor windows of the bordellos on hot summer nights.  What finally killed Block 16 was World War Two. With soldiers at the nearby Las Vegas Aerial and Gunnery Range coming up for off-duty passes in rotations of hundreds a night, Block 16 was seen as a challenge to martial discipline. When the commander of the Gunnery Range threatened to declare the whole town off-limits to servicemen, local officials immediately revoked the liquor licenses and slot machine permits of the casinos on Block 16. 

While city officials were able to close down the flesh trade, illegal gambling flourished until 1931 when the Nevada Legislature approved a legalized gambling bill authored by Phil Tobin, a Northern Nevada rancher. Tobin had no interest in gambling and had never visited Las Vegas, but saw gambling as a vehicle to raise funds for public schools.

To Be Continued….