Las Vegas – Shimmering Like a Mirage in the Desert

Most people believe they know all there is to know about Las Vegas – Sin City, founded by gangsters, a purely gambling-based economy, flowing with booze, feeding addictions, anything goes. After all, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas – right?

Oddly enough, the truth of Las Vegas is far stranger than what people believe.

Las Vegas celebrated its 100th birthday in 2005, making it one of the youngest cities in America. But people were coming to the Las Vegas Valley long before its official designation as an incorporated city.

It was, as many still see it, an oasis in the desert. Literally. An oasis with trees and a spring where wagon trains carrying supplies from Los Angeles to the Mormon capital in Salt Lake City could stop to rest and refill their water barrels in the mid- to late 19th Century. The first non-Indian settlement was a small fort built on the orders of Mormon leader Brigham Young in 1855; although abandoned two years later, it still stands today as a museum on Las Vegas Boulevard.

While Mormons always have played – and continue to have – a significant role in “Sin City” especially in the financial community, they are not alone in terms of religious influence. Las Vegas may have more ways and places to gamble than anywhere else on Earth, but it also is home to hundreds of houses of worship, representing an extremely wide range of religions.

Mining – especially silver – was the next major attraction bringing people to the area. As often was the case that was soon followed by a rail line. And that oasis of water made Las Vegas a major rail stop, where steam locomotives – and crew and passengers – could pick up water.

The railroad – then agriculture – joined mining as the linchpins of the Las Vegas economy for nearly half a century. And while all of those involved in those enterprises were known to play poker and other games of chance, the first formal gambling licenses were not issued until 1911. 

But it was another new state law making divorce quick and easy that actually spurred the arrival of short-term visitors and money, most of them staying at small “dude ranches” – precursors, in a way, to today’s luxury hotel/casinos along The Strip.