Commercial Aviation put Las Vegas on the map. George Crockett opened Alamo Airport in 1942 which created a hub for his airline and allowed for further commercial traffic. This site is significant because it was the original location for present day McCarran International Airport. During the 1940s the government needed an airport to further military training and Crockett agree to lease the land. Due to his dedication and sacrifice the county was able to provide necessary pilot training for World War II and contribute to the atomic testing project. Howard Hughes bought the facility and renamed the airport McCarran International after Senator Pat McCarran. Senator McCarran played a huge role in the development of aviation and encouraged ethical business practices and competition among the airlines. Today McCarran International Airport is the fifth busiest in the United States and tenth throughout the world.

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It started in 1945 as Virginia’s Café, named after Stella’s mother who acquired the property in an inheritance from a local judge she cared for during his final years of life. Stella ran the restaurant for her mother with her husband Joe, while Virginia managed other endeavors on the property. At this time, federal military-industrial spending helped the Las Vegas economy to boom, along with many cities in the American West during the Cold War. The arrival of the Nevada Test Site (NTS) in 1951 was one aspect of this federal military involvement in the Las Vegas community, which continued from the World War II establishments of Basic Magnesium Inc. and Nellis Airforce Base.

Public opinion of the NTS was initially marked by worry of the possible side effects of radiation and fallout. The quick acceptance and even excitement over being a part of the nation’s defense grew from active efforts by the Atomic Energy Commission, along with the generally increased anti-Communist sentiment in the United States. Fears were easy to quell through created images of the American West as simultaneously an empty wasteland made for testing, and a beautiful sunny oasis.

The development of the NTS contributed to a prominent nuclear culture, a form of patriotic pride in the city, from which Atomic Liquors directly grew. While the NTS was dropping its first above ground test-bomb, Joe and Stella grew tired of cooking food and looked towards selling alcohol. Initially in the form of a liquor store in 1952, by 1954 the Sobhiks had established Atomic Liquors as a full-service bar, complete with a rooftop to watch mushroom clouds rise 60-70 miles outside of town while sipping popular “atomic cocktails” that marked the era.

As above-ground testing ended in 1963, the “atomic hairdos,” “Miss Atomic Bomb Contests,” and “atomic cocktails” that marked the era’s culture fell-out of popularity. Atomic Liquors, however, remained. Consistently a hangout for mobsters, celebrities, and other Fremont Street laborers, the bar continued as a popular neighborhood staple for a few decades. As the Fremont Street District hit harder economic times, it lost out to the popularity of the Strip, and Atomic Liquors became a little-known neighborhood watering-hole most locals and tourists alike had not heard of, or did not want to venture into. When the Sobchiks passed in 2010, the bar went to their son, Ron, who then sold it to a group of investors, reopening it in 2012, fully restored. Today locals and tourists alike can enjoy the nostalgia of a bygone classic Las Vegas era, while also embracing the new craft beers and cocktail menu that compliments the larger revitalization of Downtown Las Vegas.

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Located at 300 Stewart Ave, the Las Vegas Federal Courthouse and Post Office, opened on November 27th 1933 and remained in constant use until 2005. Prior to President Franklin Roosevelt’s appointment of a Federal Judge in Las Vegas the state had only one full time federal court in the state capitol, Carson City. Instead, judges from adjacent states rotated through Las Vegas hearing federal cases in the absence of a full time jurist. Judge Roger Thomas Foley’s Appointment in 1945 signified a greater projection of federal power into the “Battle Born State” and more specifically into Las Vegas. Locally, the Courthouse served both to give locals access to Federal offices but is also noteworthy due to the overwhelming federal oversight of Nevada’s natural resources and often contentious relations between the Federal Government and local residents.

The courthouse also played host to two events of national importance. On November 15th 1950 the Kefauver Hearings on Organized Crime convened in Las Vegas. Although this installment of Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver’s investigation lacked the theatre of previous episodes it provided insight into sports wire operations overseen by Organized Crime thereby underscoring the national nature of the Mob. The Kefauver Hearings, apart from providing “must see television” spurred congress to pass gambling bans thereby solidifying Las Vegas’ role as the capital of American gambling. Authors Ed Reid and Ovid Demaris estimate in their book The Green Felt Jungle that organized crime invested more than $300 million in gambling operations in Las Vegas by 1962.

Later, on April 13, 1955 Hank Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, faced an “inciting murder” indictment over his editorials criticizing Senator Joe McCarthy at the height of his power. Prosecutors cited headlines reading “Is Senator McCarthy a Secret Communist” as evidence that the author, Greenspun, sought to incite McCarthy’s assassination. The council for the defense countered with the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, the guarantee of Free Speech, while also citing the ruin McCarthy brought to one hundred and eight State Department employees that he accused of Communist ties without any evidence. This contention thereby proposed that rather than inciting McCarthy’s murder their client was a journalist with the courage to speak truth to unchecked power. In a small victory for decency Greenspun was acquitted on the first ballot.

The Las Vegas Federal Courthouse and Post Office was recognized by the Federal Registry of Historic Places on February 10, 1983 (#83001108). The building served as a courthouse until 1965 and as a Post Office until it was purchased, re-purposed and refurbished into the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement. Museum visitors trace the evolution of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement from localized phenomenons to national movements while simultaneously exploring criminal influence both in illegal activities and in shaping American pop culture.

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The Moulin Rouge was opened in 1955 amidst a civil rights battle in Las Vegas. The city’s black residents insisted that Las Vegas officials pass a civil rights ordinance which would allow African Americans to dine, gamble, and stay at Strip hotels. The city’s practice of segregation, which began in the 1930s, had earned it the moniker “The Mississippi of the West.” While Las Vegas hotels and casinos employed black employees in behind-the-scenes jobs, the workers who dealt with the public, like dealers and servers, were all white. The most visible African Americans employed by the hotels were entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald. Even though their names appeared on hotel marquees, black performers were not permitted in the front door and were required to stay in boarding houses in city’s Westside, the neighborhood where Las Vegas’s black population was restricted. A group of white investors led by Will Max Schwartz saw the business potential of an integrated hotel and casino in Las Vegas. Former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis was recruited to serve as the Moulin Rouge’s spokesman and purported co-owner.

From its opening night on May 24, 1955, the Moulin Rouge attracted a mixed clientele of black and white patrons. Celebrities such as Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, Bob Hope, Dean Martin, Milton Berle, Dorothy Lamour, Judy Garland, and Marlene Dietrich all made their way to the Moulin Rouge during its short period of operation. The reason why the Moulin Rouge was such a magnet for performers was because it was the only hotel where black and white entertainers could socialize with one another in Las Vegas. Strip hotels attempted to ban its headliners from visiting the Moulin Rouge. White performers such as Tallulah Bankhead were issued ultimatums, but most refused to comply. Black entertainers who graced the Moulin Rouge’s showroom include Lionel Hampton, Dinah Washington, Gregory Hines, and the Platters. The Moulin Rouge also offered employment opportunities for residents of the Westside. Black Las Vegans found employment as dealers, cocktail waitresses, bartenders, security guards, and managers.

The Moulin Rouge, named after the famed Parisian cabaret, had 110 rooms, a swimming pool, a 60-foot-high neon Eiffel Tower and a neon sign designed by Betty Willis in the googie style emblematic of the 1950s. The most popular attraction at the Moulin Rouge was its marquee number, a colorful African-themed late night show called The Tropi Can Can which featured Las Vegas’s only all-black chorus line. In June 1955, showgirls from the Moulin Rouge even made the cover of Life magazine.

In November 1955, financial mismanagement forced the Moulin Rouge’s closure. By December, the hotel had filed for bankruptcy. Although it was only open for six months, the Moulin Rouge offered its guests a brief glimpse of what a racially-integrated Las Vegas resort looked like.

In 1960, black Las Vegans, inspired by the wave of civil rights activism sweeping across the country, threatened to march on the Las Vegas Strip unless the city took action to end segregation. A march would not only block access to the Strip, but also embarrass the city and damage its tourism industry. In March 1960, days before the planned march, the still-shuttered Moulin Rouge served as the venue for a meeting which included NAACP branch president Dr. James McMillan, Nevada Governor Grant Sawyer, and the city’s powerful gaming executives. At the meeting, mediated by Las Vegas Sun editor Hank Greenspun, casino bosses agreed to end their discriminatory policies and allow African Americans to patronize their establishments.

In the decades since the Moulin Rouge’s initial closure, a number of different owners have attempted to re-open it and restore the hotel to its former glory. The building fell victim to an arsonist in 2003. In 2010 city officials declared the hotel’s decorative tower a risk to public safety and had it torn down. Despite its long period of dormancy, the Moulin Rouge remains an enduring symbol of racial integration and Las Vegas’s civil rights struggle.

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