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Casino chips and credit card slips at the Sands Hotel: photograph
Series VIII. Sands Hotel Interior and Exterior
Sands Hotel and Casino
Mixed Content
Photographs of Binion's signs, Las Vegas (Nev.), April 18, 2017
The Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel, bought in 1951 as the Horseshoe Club, sits at 128 Fremont Street inside the Fremont Street Experience. Information about the sign is available in the Southern Nevada Neon Survey Sheet.
Site name: Binion's Horseshoe (Las Vegas, Nev.)
Site address: 128 Fremont St
Sign owner: TLC Casino Enterprises
Sign details: Opened By Benny Binion 1951, and later say remodels and expansions in 1960 after the purchase of the Boulder Club and 1988 when The Mint was purchase and expanded further and doubled the size. Mr. Binion is known for popularizing the World Series of Poker and brought the game into the mainstream. Binion's Horseshoe was the first casino to put carpeting in a downtown property.
Sign condition: 5 - all of the neon on the property is well maintained and working
Sign form: Concave design, Bullnose elements and decorated shed
Sign-specific description: The property is currently known as Binion's. The horseshoe elements of the property were removed when the Casino changed the name in 2004. The property is a decorated shed, with blue neon signs covering the exterior of the building. The property also has neon signs with the name "Binion's" in a cursive font around the building, along with a large "B" and the world "Gambling" in a western style serif font
Sign - type of display: Neon and Incandescent
Sign - media: Steel
Sign animation: Flickering incandescent bulbs, neon tubes in-between the solid blue flicker.
Sign environment: Downtown Las Vegas, across from Golden Nugget
Sign manufacturer: YESCO and AD-Art
Sign designer: Rudy Crisostomo
Sign architect of record: 1961
Sign - date of installation: 1961
Sign - date of redesign/move: 2005 rebranded as Binion's Gambling Hall
Sign - thematic influences: Similar to other properties on Fremont Street. Property is wrapped with neon and has elements of western flair in the design
Sign - artistic significance: 1960s Downtown started to see the first decorated sheds, and the western style casino was still popular during that time.
Survey - research locations: The Magic Sign, Binion's website, Vintage Vegas
Survey - research notes: https://lasvegassun.com/blogs/kats-report/2010/jan/12/rooms-dark-there-still-action-binions/
Surveyor: Wyatt Currie-Diamond
Survey - date completed: 2017-09-11
Sign keywords: Neon; Incandescent; Steel; Flickering; Bullnose; Architectural
Mixed Content
Elton Garrett oral history interviews
Oral history interviews with Elton Garrett conducted by Dennis McBride on November 10 and 11, 1986 for the Boulder City Library Oral History Project. In these interviews, Garrett talks about hitchhiking into Nevada in 1928, the beginning of his journalism career in 1929, and the development and construction of the Hoover Dam and Boulder City. He relates anecdotes about events and people during this early period and talks about the choice of The Six Companies, Incorporated to build the dam. He continues, talking about the impact of prohibition, bootlegging, and illegal gambling before 1931. Later he talks about his work as an educator in Boulder City, and the decision by the city to work toward self-government and incorporation.
Archival Collection
Lyla Joy Ford oral history interview
Oral history interview with Lyla Joy Ford conducted by Anne Cope on March 12, 1975 for the Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas. Ford discusses social life in Las Vegas, Nevada in the early days. She discusses how the railroad, Hoover Dam, and the Basic Magnesium Plant brought money into Las Vegas. She recalls Sammy David Jr. performing at the El Rancho Casino, the Helldorado Parade being a big western celebration, atomic tests, and witnessing the city’s transformation from a small farming town to a major gambling city.
Archival Collection
Fuller, Harvey
Harvey J. Fuller (1919-2004) was raised in Southern California, attending college before joining the army air corp during World War II. After the war, he joined the Los Angeles police department, serving from 1946 until 1977. An inveterate collector, Fuller took up collecting gaming tokens after seeing a display at Harvey's Resort Hotel in the late 1960s.
Person
Postcard of Fremont Street at night, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1960s
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Photograph of Nevada Club marque on Fremont Street, Las Vegas (Nev.), late 1950s - early 1960s
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Photograph of a faro card game in the Boulder Club (Las Vegas), 1953
Faro table in the Boulder Club Card Room. Transcribed from photo: "The card room at the back of the old Boulder Club where Larry Hazelwood played bridge, Jimmy Young played poker, etc. Permission to take this photo given by Jimmy Young, part owner along with Ken Houssels, Sr., Larry Hazelwood, Connie Hurley, and Mrs. Witcher. At the table left a shill from Horseshoe; right- Blackie- a Boulder Club shill; Standing behind Blackie, Boulder Club Bar manager, Ben; Standing next to Ben two regulars of the Boulder Club." Transcribed from photo sleeve: "About August, 1953"
Site Name: Boulder Club
Address: 118 East Fremont Street
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