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DALLAS, TEXAS D. 235,265 SUN. 259,210 JUL I I 1965 fter Dark: Meadows Blooming With Gold, Hotels and?╟÷Top Show Business '?╜ By FRANCIS RAFFETTO Las Vegas (or The Meadows) in Nevada (meaning snow-clad), to most people signifies glittering hotels, spinning roulette wheels, fortunes lost and made, and gorgeous theatrical shows starring the finest of American talent. Which is all exactly true. But in addition there's the forgotten desert with its alkali wastes interspersed with mesquite and greasewood and, some 20 miles distant, the magnificent Hoover Dam, or, depending an your politics, Boulder Dam. What is Las Vegas? Mostly, the people who discover Las Vegas have two significant attributes ?╟÷ except for the numerically fewer job seekers, the press, end the allied service industries MONEY AND the love of gambling are the two chief ingredients impelling people to visit Las Vegas. And there are enough people with both of these qualities to keep the wheels turning and the dice clicking. True, many average American tourists drop in on Vegas as part of their holiday trips. But even these are usually at least semi- affluent and ready to spend. But the average American citizen, earning wages and nursing payments will not pick up the tab for a trip into the desert to joust with the games of chance. Physically, the city's lure lies in a group of hotels which by now have almost household names: (ies, Riviera, Stardust, Flamingo, Desert Inn, Tropicana, Thunderbird, etc. Basically, each has a large dining room with complete theater stage on which are assembled big production numbers which would not shame any theater in the land. These have stars, complete stage sets, expensive scenery, resident" bands and are scheduled for two I shows nightly. IN ADDITION, a hotel will I! have its lounge, of smaller dimensions but with top entertainers presenting almost continuous acts during the night to dawn. The big shows and the lounge I entertainment, however, are mere- j ly a musical accompaniment to I the metallic tune of the tinkling ' dollars, clicking chips and whirring wheels from the big main lobby casino room in each hotel. Here the "decor" is much the isame, with rows and rows of slot imachines, perhaps up to 200. In j 6ne area will be roulette wheels, j with dealers in green aprons itanding at the readv. Dice tables are lined up in a rrow, perhaps six in a cluster, ?╟≤ with two expressionless stick men and a banker at each. Poker tables are there in abundance too, with dealers of all ages and sizes shuffling cards soundlessly and , expertly without raising thefti from the table. Bills are stuffed through a slot in the table and chips are always in precise order in stacks. Five or six leather stuffed bar stools are lined in front. AT ANY time of day or night, 9 p. i. or 4:46 a.m., a visitor can leave his hotel room, descend toj the casino and see throngs of people courting Lady Luck. Some are feeding coins to the slot machines, -tensely, nonchalantly or with apparent boredom. Nearly all are informally dressed * From one poker ^able, a stocky man in slacks and sports shirt takes three steps, stops, considers, then pulls out a roll of money as big as his fist. He peels off a $100 bill and turns back to the table In the hotel elevator, one hears a passenger tell his companion: "I'm going to cash in. This is too bulky to carry." The attraction ot winning free wealth on the turn of the wheel, flip of the card or roll of the dice now brings 1,500,000 passengers a year into Las Vegas' McCarran Airport via seven airlines. And this doesn't count auto and train traffic. IT HAS also spurred about $100,000,000 worth of construction in new hotels or additions since 1963 ?╟÷ which means 6,500 new rooms included in a trend toward high-rise structures. Last year, Las Vegas builders over-supplied the market with a glut of 1,000 single family homes and about 3,500 apartments vacant and unsold. This was in a town of 250,000 people. Now Las Vegas has caught up with the construction, although the city takes care of its zooming tourist trade (19,400,000 visitors expected in 1970) with a labor force of 35,200. Tourism, of course, is the biggest industry, with three out of five natives working in that field. Some of the building is spectacular, even by Dallas standards. The new 17-story Sands Tower will give that hotel 777 rooms and suites, with an air-condationed promenade connecting 400 of them to the casino. (The tower rooms are wedge-shaped and the bathtubs in the round structure are gqiiarAV ..: .?√ß | __ _ , ' Vr- OTHER HIGH-RISE construction ?╟÷ the twin 9-story powers of the Desert Inn, and the Flamingo Hotel's attractive tower outside the main entrance. Across from the Dunes Hotel, workmen are building Caesar's Palace, a triple-tower complex with the center tower rising 20 stories. The Dunes itself now rises 22 stories ($8,000,000 tower) and has 1,000 rooms and suites; with the world's biggest free standing electric sign, costing $500,000 and using up $100 worth of electricity a day. The Del Webb Corporation has started a new 24-story Sahara Hotel which, with its present 10- story tower, will give it also 1,000 rooms and suites. The biggest along "Glitter Gulch" is the Stardust Hotel, with 1,400 rooms and suites in the hotel proper, and Stardust South, formerly the Royal Nevada Hotel. AN EMPTY mushroom-typei profile against the sky is The! Landmark, a space needle restau-j rant like the one at the Seattle' World's Fair. The Las Vegasj "needle" stands 29 stories high,] stark and empty, needing another! $4,000,000 to complete it after already using up that amount. Until now ?╟÷ no takers. Not all the construction or glittering hotels are confined to the 5-mile "strip," since downtown iri Casino Center are: the Mint Ho?╜ tel and Casino; the 31-story Fremont Hotel tower ?╟÷ tallest building in Nevada; and an 18-story Four Queens Hotel and Casino under construction. Although the much-vaunted Las Vegas food prices are not any cheaper than in Dallas (good restaurants and hotels there charge up to $8.50 for dinner) there is no disputing that the busy gambling industry makes possible the plethora of entertainment talent at little or no cost to the tourist. THUS, ALMOST within walking distance, you have Red Skelton, Joe E. Lewis, Harry James, Juliet Prowse, Frank Fontaine, Louis Prima, Dick Contino, Ray Anthony . and the t like\ And what would in normal times be a head- liner act is often Used as a stopgap filler to while away a scene change for such, big spectacles as the Tropicana's "Folies Bergere;" the fine "Casino de Paris" at the Dunes; the Stardust's "Lido 66," Desert Inn's "Hello, America," etc. A taxi driver along the neon- dazzling strip summed it up: "If people want the best in entertainment plus the excitement of gambling?╟÷and know when to stop ?╟÷this is the place for fun." [