Vegas Turns 100
Everyone's favourite casino city turned 100 last year and did Las Vegas ever dazzle through the decades!
1907 - The town of Las Vegas is founded when the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad Company holds a land auction at the site on May 15.
1911- The population of Las Vegas is just 800.
1912 - The Majestic - Las Vegas's very first theatre - opens, featuring the best vaudeville acts and motion pictures of the time.
1926 - Las Vegas gets a regular air service. Western Air Express flies between Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. The airfield later becomes the site for the famous Sahara and Hilton hotels.
1931 - Gambling is legalised in Nevada on March 19. Construction begins on the Hoover Dam.
1941 - The Strip gets its first luxury hotel. El Rancho Vegas sets the trend for many of the themed resorts that sprout along the Strip in the later years.
1942 - The first wedding chapel, the Little Church of the West, opens on the Strip in the Last Frontier Hotel.
1946 - Two famous landmarks open: Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo and the Golden Nugget. Nevada levies it's first gaming tax.
1949 - Benny Binion sets up a high stakes poker game at his Horseshoe casino between Nick 'The Greek' Dandalos and Johnny Moss. It turns into an epic five month poker match laying the foundations for the World Series of Poker.
1951 - On September 4, Frank Sinatra makes his Vegas debut, performing in the Crystal Room t the Desert Inn.
1959 - Wayne Newton performs in Vegas for the first time, despite the fact that he is still too young to enter a casino.
1967 - Elvis Presley marries Priscilla Anne Beaulieu on May 1 inn the chapel of the Aladdin Hotel.
1970 - Binion's Horseshoe casino hosts the first World Series of Poker.
1971 - Female card dealers begin working on the Strip for the first time.
1973 - The MGM Grand opens in the strip, becoming the world's largest hotel.
1989 - One of Vegas's most extravagant hotels opens. Steve Wynn's Mirage resort features a man made volcano and over 3000 rooms. Siegfried and Roy sign a $57 million, five year contract to provide entertainment at the hotel.
1993 - Steve Wynn buys the Dune Hotel, then implodes it to make way for the Bellagio. On December 31, Barbara Streisand stars in the inaugural concert at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.
1994 - On New Year's Day Frank Sinatra gives his last Las Vegas performance at the MGM Grand.
1998 - Opening of the Bellagio. With 3026 rooms it is the largest hotel in the world, and also the most expensive. It cost $1.7 billion to build.
2000 - MGM Grand Inc. stages the gaming industry's largest corporate buyout with it's $6 million purchase of Mirage Resorts Inc.
2005 - Las Vegas Celebrates it's centenary as the population reaches 2,000,000.
