Posted 10 years ago
tom61375
(433 items)
On September 1, 1948, the Thunderbird Hotel was the fourth resort to open on the Las Vegas Strip. The resort was built by developer Marion Hicks and owned by Lieutenant Governor of Nevada Clifford A. Jones. The resort had a Native American theme and featured portraits, a Navajo-based restaurant, the only bowling alley ever on the Strip, and a showroom. In 1955, articles surfaced in the Las Vegas Sun saying that Meyer Lansky and other underworld figures held hidden shares in the hotel. In 1964, the casino was purchased by Del Webb for $10 million. He ran the resort until 1972, when he sold it to Caesars World, owner of Caesars Palace, for $13.6 million. A $150-million, 2,000-room resort called the Mark Anthony was planned for the site, but Caesars was unable to find financing, and sold the property four years later to banker E. Parry Thomas at a loss of $5.7 million. Thomas later sold it to Major Riddle, owner of the Dunes Hotel, who renamed the resort as the Silverbird in 1976. The Thunderbird has the distinction of being the resort where singer Rosemary Clooney made her first appearance in Las Vegas in 1951, and where Judy Garland made her final Vegas appearance in 1965.
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The Thunderbird was unfortunately before my time. I remember the El Rancho and how the decrepit shuttered property just sat in the Strip deteriorating for what seemed like a decade.
I do appreciate the history though, and recently I came across a vintage pair of Thinderbird Las Vegas cufflinks that I just had to have.
I do have this chip as well. On display in a chip frame in the hallway (Vegas Degenerates Unite!). ????
Thanks for posting!
Ignore the "????". My phone adds that randomly for no reason sometimes when I post.