The Flamingo, one of Strip’s most iconic resorts, turns 75

Accepting the past tin beryllium difficult, particularly erstwhile it involves execution and mobsters.

When the Flamingo turned 50 successful 1996, determination was nary celebration, nary fanfare to people the occasion, nary nationalist designation of the resort’s origins and its ties to Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and the mob.

Las Vegas was successful the midst of a civilization shift. The epoch of mob regularisation had travel to an extremity by the mid-1980s. Megaresorts specified arsenic The Mirage, Treasure Island and Luxor were opening each implicit the Strip, and Las Vegas was increasing ever conscious of its nationalist image.

“The Bugsy representation was not thing that was peculiarly endearing to the Flamingo oregon Hilton,” Flamingo Hilton spokesperson Terry Lindberg said successful 1996, the Las Vegas Sun reported astatine the time. “This was not George Washington oregon Abraham Lincoln. We’re talking astir a robber, rapist and murderer. Those are not endearing qualities. We privation to retrieve the past of the Flamingo without glamorizing it. We’ve made a conscious determination to region ourselves from the Bugsy heritage.”

Undeniable portion of history

A quarter-century aboriginal arsenic the edifice commemorates its 75th anniversary, those sentiments are changing.

The Flamingo isn’t outright celebrating the mobsters who opened the resort, but there’s present immoderate level of designation of those origins.

In 2020, the Flamingo unveiled the caller Bugsy and Meyer’s Steakhouse, a throwback-style edifice named aft those 2 mobsters, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. There’s adjacent a memorial plaque to Siegel that present sits successful the resort’s famed flamingo habitat.

“I deliberation it’s conscionable that it’s acknowledging the existent past of the Flamingo. It’s an undeniable portion of the history, and it’s thing that’s unsocial to Flamingo, and leaning into that and sharing it we thought was appropriate. Certainly not condoning the method of operations, but it is simply a portion of the past of the Flamingo,” said Sean McBurney, president of determination operations for Caesars Entertainment, the existent operators of the Flamingo.

Coupled with moves similar the opening of the Mob Museum a decennary ago, UNLV past prof Michael Green said that the acceptance shows the maturity of the city, “that we tin really look backmost astatine this mob past and, granted that we whitethorn beryllium excessively nostalgic astir it, but inactive look astatine it and travel to grips with it.”

Now astatine 75, The Flamingo is the oldest edifice connected the Strip. Its past, which includes everything from the mafia to Kirk Kerkorian to the decade-long tally of Donny and Marie Osmond, is simply a reflection of the Strip’s past and the iconic corridor’s quality to reinvent itself clip and clip again.

“It is simply a edifice that truly is simply a pivot constituent for Las Vegas,” said Larry Gragg, an emeritus past prof astatine Missouri University of Science and Technology and writer of the 2015 publication “Benjamin ‘Bugsy’ Siegel: The Gangster, the Flamingo, and the Making of Modern Las Vegas.”

The Bugsy years

Siegel gets astir of the recognition for opening the Flamingo, but the thought to physique a Miami-beach benignant edifice successful Southern Nevada really came from his one-time concern spouse Billy Wilkerson.

Wilkerson was a palmy Los Angeles businessman successful the 1930s and 1940s who founded The Hollywood Reporter and owned respective fashionable nightclubs connected the famed Sunset Boulevard. He was besides a compulsive gambler who would routinely walk respective 1000 dollars successful Las Vegas astatine a time, according to his son, Willy Wilkerson, who wrote the biography of his begetter titled “Hollywood Godfather: The Life and Crimes of Billy Wilkerson.”

One night, Wilkerson confessed his gambling occupation and the fiscal woes that followed to his person Joseph Schenck, the affluent movie enforcement and president of 20th Century Fox. Schenck, a gambler himself, had a solution to Wilkerson’s woes: Build a casino and ain the house.

“The inference was that if you lost, the wealth would beryllium cleverly recycled. So my father, losing the bulk of the time, would beryllium capable to indulge his addiction and astatine the aforesaid clip beryllium making wealth for his casino. So it was similar a win-win. That’s fundamentally wherever it started,” Willy Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson started gathering the edifice successful 1945, but by aboriginal 1946, the task was retired of wealth arsenic the compulsive gambler had mislaid hundreds of thousands of dollars successful different casinos successful town.

Flamingo’s enduring impact

Enter Siegel, a longtime bruiser for the mob who had already established himself successful the Las Vegas country done the equine contention ligament services and investing into different casinos connected Fremont Street. Wilkerson needed money, and the mob was a consenting partner. Siegel and his associates bought two-thirds of the task and yet forced Wilkerson out.

Siegel upped the stakes of luxury for the project, and with it the terms tag. The outgo of gathering the edifice ballooned from astir $1.2 cardinal to an estimated $6 cardinal by the clip operation was complete.

Finally, connected Dec. 26, 1946, the Flamingo opened its doors for the archetypal time. And it did truthful successful what would go existent Vegas fashion, attracting apical headliners for the three-day expansive opening including vigor drama prima Jimmy Durante and bandleader Xavier Cugat.

But it wasn’t agelong earlier problems cropped up. The edifice opened with its edifice incomplete, and a drawstring of gambling losses that historians including Gragg chalk up mostly to unspeakable atrocious luck yet forced the edifice to adjacent aft conscionable six weeks. The Flamingo reopened with the edifice operation implicit connected March 1, 1947, and would spell connected to beryllium a large success.

The aforesaid can’t beryllium said astir Siegel.

On June 20, 1947, portion successful the Beverly Hills location of his woman Virginia Hill, Siegel was changeable dead. That execution remains unsolved to this day, though astir historians judge the mob was progressive successful immoderate fashion. Gragg said much than a twelve radical person been suggested arsenic the hitman implicit the years.

According to Gragg, mobsters Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum walked into the Flamingo and announced that they were taking implicit wrong 15 minutes of Siegel’s decease immoderate 300 miles away,

Those aboriginal years, and the enigma surrounding Siegel’s death, helped substance the mystique of some the Flamingo and Las Vegas and kick-started a brand-new epoch successful town.

“The Flamingo confirms the adage that information is alien than fiction. It was a abbreviated model of clip successful Las Vegas that proved to person lingering effects for decades,” said Geoff Schumacher, a longtime Las Vegas writer who present works arsenic the vice president of exhibits and programs astatine the Mob Museum. “I imagine, it’s imaginable that if Bugsy Siegel hadn’t built a luxury edifice connected Highway 91 arsenic helium did, we inactive whitethorn person ended up with the Las Vegas Strip. But helium surely accelerated that progress.”

From mafia to boardrooms

When the Strip started its displacement distant from mob-run successful favour of a much corporate, commercialized environment, the Flamingo was close determination pivoting with it.

Kerkorian, who would spell connected to make immoderate of the biggest edifice casinos successful Las Vegas, entered the Flamingo representation successful 1967 erstwhile helium bought the resort, cutting the casino’s ties with the mob wholly and helping to awesome the Strip’s displacement to firm gaming.

“In his archetypal year, helium reported his profits to the state. And they questioned it. Because they said it’s ne'er made that overmuch wealth before. And it deed everybody: Yeah, helium wasn’t skimming anything. Who knows however overmuch wealth was mislaid to the skim,” said Green, the UNLV professor.

Kerkorian didn’t clasp onto the edifice for long. He sold it successful the aboriginal 1970s to Hilton hotels, which would spell connected to rename it the Flamingo Hilton.

When the adjacent large pivot came to Las Vegas with the epoch of massive, integrated resorts successful the precocious 1980s and 1990s, the Flamingo adapted erstwhile again. By 1993, the edifice had grown to much than 3,500 rooms and adjacent featured a 200-unit timeshare tower.

Lasting impact

In a way, determination is nary amended reflection of the past of the Strip than the Flamingo itself.

“If you were going to bash a past of the Strip and you privation to bash the beingness and times of the Flamingo, I deliberation that’s a bully mode to bash it,” Green said.

When the Flamingo opened its doors successful 1946, the resort’s Miami Beach, Art Deco benignant was a bucking of the inclination of Old West-themed hotels that was the norm successful Las Vegas astatine the time. It was the archetypal existent luxury edifice connected the Strip, mounting a precedent for comfort, amenities and amusement options that remains firmly woven into the town’s cloth to this day.

Crime families had been progressive successful owning different casinos successful town, but the Flamingo was the archetypal mob-built casino successful town.

It’s outlasted the Strip casinos that came earlier — it’s the lone 1 built earlier 1950 that inactive remains — and galore of those that followed. It was an aboriginal portion of the displacement toward firm gaming and adapted to the epoch of integrated megaresorts.

The present 75-year-old edifice is simply a surviving illustration of the past of Las Vegas, a remnant of an epoch that Las Vegas erstwhile tried to hide and present leans into. It’s been portion of the municipality and the Strip’s evolution, from the Old West to ultra luxury, from mobsters to firm executives. Every measurement forward, each shift, each pivot — the Flamingo has been there, changing close on with the city.

Contact Colton Lochhead astatine clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead connected Twitter.