From Sand to Sin: A Downtown Las Vegas History Tour

Las Vegas may be known as the gaming capital of the world today, but it didn’t start out that way. In fact, gambling was illegal in Nevada from 1910 until 1931.

Sin City is quick to implode its history and reinvent itself, and on this walking tour, I’ll reveal what time hasn’t erased: the fragments of history and the characters who brought it to life.

This tour starts at the top of Fremont Street at the Plaza Hotel and Casino. As you walk, I’ll tell you about the city’s early days from when the Southern Paiute (or Nuwuvi) used the area to cultivate useful plants around the springs and creeks in the valley to when it was a dusty railway stop. Outside the California Hotel and Casino, you’ll hear about Sam Gay, the notorious sheriff, and his policing (or lack thereof) of Block 16, Las Vegas’s first-ever red-light district.

You’ll venture in and out of casinos as I point out tucked-away treasures that most first-timers overlook. You’ll take in over 120 years of history covering prospectors and railroads to entrepreneur Tony Hsieh and his company Zappos. The tour ends at the El Cortez Hotel and Casino, where I’ll tell you the story of Fat Irish Green, a mobster’s bagman whose loyalty earned him a lifetime free stay.

Along the way, you’ll have a chance to:

• See where the very first cards at the World Series of Poker were dealt at Binion’s Gambling Hall and Hotel
• Take in Las Vegas’s oldest surviving relics and the birthplace of legalized gaming
• Visit the Mob Museum and hear about how cowboy gangsters broke cheaters’ fingers
• Hear the stories behind one of the city’s famous neon signs, Vegas Vic, and find out how neon lights transformed marketing
• Stop for a drink at Hogs and Heifers Saloon, a rowdy watering hole that inspired the film Coyote Ugly
• Pass underneath a former viewing area for nuclear testing, when atomic bomb viewings were all the rage

By the end of this 90-minute tour, you’ll have a new understanding of how Las Vegas turned from a dusty train stop to a world-class destination. You’ll also have some new bars and restaurants to try out.