Mark Meek's Ideas: Las Vegas

The name of Las Vegas means "The Meadows". The city is built on railroad land that was sold and incorporated as a city in the 1930s. Nearby Hoover (Boulder) Dam was a public works project of the Great Depression during the 1930s. The gambling that Las Vegas is known for is very deeply historically rooted in the wealth-seekers who joined the gold rushes of the old west. There are copies of many famous sights, such as the pyramids, the Eiffel Tower and, the Statue of Liberty.

I am greatly impressed by the replicas of the Statue of Liberty and New York skyscrapers, with the Empire State Building on the left and the Chrysler Building on the right, in this image from Google Street View.

Not far away are the replicas of the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower, both from Google Street View.

Until the 1960s, people in Las Vegas could view the testing of nuclear bombs on the horizon. The first non-Indian settlement in Las Vegas was a Mormon way station on the route between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. Las Vegas is surrounded by mountains and is in the Mojave Desert.

The original downtown of Las Vegas was along Fremont Street. The section of Fremont Street with the roof is called the Fremont Street Experience.

There are multiple scenes following. To see the scenes, after the first one, you must first click the up arrow ^, before you can move on to the next scene by clicking the right or forward arrow, >. After clicking the up arrow, you can then hide the previews of successive scenes, if you wish.

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This is the area of downtown Las Vegas known as the Arts District.

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Toward the southern part of the city is the observation tower and hotel called the Stratosphere. The first scenes are from Google Earth and Street View.

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Las Vegas is not only about being a resort and gambling, it is also a major city. This is a residential area.

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The focal point of Las Vegas, at least the resort and gambling aspect, has migrated southward from the traditional downtown to Las Vegas Boulevard, which is more commonly known as the "Las Vegas Strip". Most of the Las Vegas Strip is actually south of the city, in the town known as Paradise. There is a monorail that runs parallel to the Las Vegas Strip. These two view of the Vegas strip are from Google Earth.

This is the traditional downtown of Las Vegas, as seen in Google Earth.

The Las Vegas Strip consists of massive and world-famous hotels with casinos. There are "historic" casino-hotels that have been dynamited in order to make way for new ones. But these historic casinos have not faded from memory. Two of the best-known, built in the 1940s and 50s, are the Flamingo and the Desert Inn.

From Google Earth here is the Pyramid, Sphinx and, Obelisk.

Other historic casinos from the heyday of Las Vegas are the Dunes, the Sands, the Stardust and the Sahara. One of the legends that emerged from these old casinos is that of the "Rat Pack". This was a group of famous entertainers that hung out in the casinos.

The Mirage is a well-known casino and hotel on the Las Vegas Strip.

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Another is Caesar's Palace.

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The first thing that I did after arriving in Las Vegas is to have dinner in the food court of the Fashion Show Mall.

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The famous "Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas" sign is actually at the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip, which is in the town of Paradise. Nearby is the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino, where 58 people were killed in the October 2017 mass shooting. The first scene of the Las Vegas sign if from Google Street View.