page_title: History of Las Vegas
section_title: Since 1989: the megaresort era
hierarchical_section_title: History of Las Vegas / Since 1989: the megaresort era
caption_attribution_description: English: Las Vegas Strip
context_page_description: This history of Las Vegas covers both the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, and the Las Vegas Valley.
  The name Las Vegas was given to the city in 1829 by Rafael Rivera, a member of the Spanish explorer Antonio Armijo trading party that was traveling to Los Angeles, and stopped for water there on the Old Spanish Trail from New Mexico. At that time, several parts of the valley contained artesian wells surrounded by extensive green areas; Las Vegas means "the meadows" in Spanish. The flows from the wells fed the Las Vegas Wash, which runs to the Colorado River.
  The settlement of Las Vegas was founded in 1905 after opening of a railroad that linked Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. The stopover attracted some farmers to the area, and fresh water was piped in to the settlement. In 1911, the town was incorporated as part of the newly founded Clark County. Urbanization took off in 1931 when work started on the Boulder Dam, bringing a huge influx of young male workers, for whom theaters and casinos were built, largely by the Mafia. Electricity from the dam also enabled the building of many new hotels along the Strip.
context_section_description: The "Mafia/Rat Pack" Las Vegas of the mid-20th century came to a gradual end in the 1980s with the aging out of the World War II generation, the decline of organized crime elements, and the rise of baby boomer entrepreneurs who began a new chapter in the city's history, the so-called megaresort era. Las Vegas began to become a more commercialized, family-oriented place with large corporations coming to own the hotels, casinos, and nightclubs in place of Mafia bosses. The megaresort era kicked off in 1989 with the construction of The Mirage. Built by developer Steve Wynn, it was the first resort built with money from Wall Street, selling $630 million in junk bonds. Its 3,044 rooms, each with gold tinted windows, set a new standard for Vegas luxury and attracted tourists in droves, leading to additional financing and rapid growth on the Las Vegas Strip. More landmark hotels and other structures were razed to make way for ever-larger and more opulent resorts including:
  1990: Rio and Excalibur
  1993: MGM Grand, Treasure Island, and Luxor,
  1996: Stratosphere Tower and Monte Carlo
  1997: New York-New York
  1998: Bellagio
  1999: Mandalay Bay, Venetian, and Paris
  2000: Planet Hollywood (Formerly Aladdin)
  2001: Palms
  2005: Wynn (opened in April by Wynn Resorts Limited opened its new flagship, the constructed at a cost of US$2.7 billion.)
  The Helldorado Days festival was resumed in 2005 for the City of Las Vegas' centennial celebration.
caption: The Strip resorts in late 2009
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