With this flurry of activity-sometimes legal, sometimes less so-the Sin City that we know and love today was born. Tourism and gambling took over as the city’s largest industries after the Second World War, bringing with them a chapter of organized crime retold in detail at the Mob Museum in the city’s former courthouse. The largest of its kind when it opened, the El Rancho set the stage for a boom that spawned iconic hotels such as The Flamingo and the late, great Desert Inn.
It’s difficult to imagine a Las Vegas without casinos and resorts, but such was the state of things when the Hotel El Rancho Vegas opened on Las Vegas Boulevard in 1941. But the bulk of those meadows are long gone, their wild grasses giving way to the neon-lit stretch of roadway known as the Las Vegas Strip.
When Spanish scout Rafael Rivera first set foot in the region, the valley’s vast grasslands compelled him to name it 'The Meadows' in his native tongue. Considering so much of the town is built on fantasy, it's fitting that even the name 'Las Vegas' is a bit of harmless fraud.
