upr000258 280

A T ou rist T ra d e: T h e follow in g analysis of tourist revenue was issued by the Las V ega s Chamber o f Com m erce under date o f July 31, 1953: Number No. of Employees No. of Accommodations Estimated Value Persons Housed Annually Estimated Tourist Spending* R esort H otels.................... 7 3,850 1,826 $ 47,476,000 1,599,785 $ 26,243,683 Com m ercial H otels......... ....... 31 510 1,147 6,882,000 942,065 9,420,650 M otels................................... ....... 219 1,095 4,009 36,081,000 3,292,300 32,923,000 Trailer Parks.................. ....... 43 215 4,300 12,900,000 3,383,750 33,837,500 300 5,670 11,282 $103,339,000 9,217,900 $102,424,833 * Exclusive of gambling and drinking. Estimated gross revenue to gaming casinos: $43,000,000; to bars: $18,435,800. The table above includes population of a semi-permanent character; most of the trailer park population and some of the motel population is of this type. L ocated along a 5-mile section o f H igh w ay 91, just outside and southerly of Las V egas, are seven m ulti-m illion dollar resort hotels conservatively evaluated at $47,476,000. T h e com bined annual payroll o f the seven hotels alone is $21,278,750. This does not include the 31 other hotels and 219 m otels in the area. A ll o f these seven hotels have been built since 1942, starting w ith the El R ancho V egas. T he El R ancho was follow ed by the H otel Last Frontier, H otel Flam ingo, H otel Thunderbird, W ilbu r Clark’s D esert Inn, H otel Sahara and T h e Sands, the latter at a cost of $5,000,000. T h e last tw o hotels w ere both opened in 1952. Final plans are being made for the construction o f three m ore m ulti-m illion dollar hotels. A n estim ated 10 additional m otels (5 of w hich are already under construction) w ill be built in 1954. In addition, all o f the hotels are constantly expanding their room facilities and m aking other im provem ents. A n exam ple is the H otel Flam ingo w hich last m onth com pleted a redecoration o f its main building at a cost o f $1,000,000. Each one o f the hotels have, in addition to their guest room s and cottages, a large central building, shops, gam bling casinos, at least tw o cocktail lounges, and O lym pic size sw im m ing pools. L ocal radio stations are located in three o f the hotels. T h e Desert Inn has an 18-hole g o lf course in addition to its main plant. A t present there are 1,826 room s in the seven resort hotels. W ith an estim ated $200,000 a week expenditure on entertainment alone, the resort hotels offer floor show s and name entertainers on an equal par with N ew Y ork. O utstanding stars are attracted from all over the country. Salaries for individual star entertainers range from $10,000 to $30,000 a w;eek. T his does not include the salaries for other acts in the same show. T h e shows change on the average o f every tw o weeks, thus bringing in a constant new source o f talent and revenue. T he high quality of this entertainment is a m ajor tourist attraction. In d u stry: T h e principal industrial area in the D istrict is the tw o-square-m ile form er Basic M agnesium , Inc. plant at H enderson (12 miles southeast Of Las V ega s via U. S. H ighw ay 93 — 95 — 466). Basic M agnesium , Inc. (B .M .I.), was constructed b y D efense Plant Corp. in 1941-42 at an outlay o f approxim ately $140,000,000. T h e plant was a giant duplicate of plants at M anchester, England and Bitterfeld, Germ any, and contained ten plant units, each nearly a block lon g and four stories high. A water supply system from Lake M ead was constructed and tw o electric p ow er trans­m ission lin es'w ere stru n g.from H oover Dam , 15 miles away. In 1945 the plant becam e surplus and in 1948 was purchased b y the State of Nevada. T he W a r Assets Adm inistration’s price was $24,000,000, to be paid w ithout interest over a 20-year period. B y 1951 the State had paid about $6,000,000 o f the original purchase price. In M ay, 1952, the 10 plant units w ere sold or leased w ith options to purchase to five m ajor com panies : N ational Lead Com pany, Stauffer Chemical Com pany of N evada, W estern-E lectrochem ical Com pany, C om ­bined M etals R eduction Com pany and U . S. Lim e Products Corporation. C om m on facilities, such as the water, , pow er and sew er system s, roads, railroad tracks and other general facilities, and the tow nsite df H enderson w ere sold to a new B .M .I.— Basic M anagement, Inc. — a corporation w h olly ownbd b y the five m ajor com panies, - T h e five com panies -and B.M .I. assumed the $18,000,000 balance o f the purchase p rice under contracts w;hich allow ed them to purchase their, individual units outright or to continue to apply rentals to their purchases. B.M .I. is ow ned and controlled b y the fiffe com panies......... 5 T h e B .M .I. layout contains upwards o f 155 buildings, with a total floor space o f about 3,314,335 square feet. T h e area is served by a netw ork o f rail sidings from a U nion Pacific branch line and b y a four-lane highw ay. B .M .I. currently has a payroll of 2,100 persons. T h e B .M .I. group o f industries are o f a permanent nature. T h ey have acquired valuable properties for their capital investments, are w ell located with respect to raw materials, and have relatively low expenses. Stauffer Chemical, operating six full chlorine circuits, is one of the w orld ’s largest producers o f chlorine. P ioche M anganese Com pany is operating in the units acquired b y Com bined M etals and produces ferrom anganese for use as a steel alloy. U . S. Lim e Products (w hich has a supply plant a few miles southw est o f the D istrict) supplies flux for a m ajor part of the W est Coast steel industry. Titanium M etals and W estern E lectrochem ical are operating under a security blanket. Titanium M etals Corp., a subsidiary o f National Lead Com pany and A llegheny Ludlum Steel Corp., is operating in the units acquired by National Lead. Titanium M etals also is getting a new $11,000,000 plant which w ill increase the w orld production of titanium eight times. W estern E lectrochem ical is m anufacturing guided missile and jet-assisted-take-off fuels in a new $4,000,000 plant built by the U. S. N avy. T h e expansion program at B .M .I. totals $25,000,000, not including the construction o f 2,000 new hom es in the city of H enderson. In Las V egas itself the U nion Pacific Railroad is the largest em ployer, with about 700 persons em ployed in its division headquarters, shops and classification yards. O ther industries in the city include the Cinder-lite B lock Com pany and several other construction and building materials plants, and a sizable meat packing plant. W arehousing is also fairly im portant, both from Las V ega s’ position as a distribution center for m ost o f southern N evada and because it is a point o f entry to California, w ith stored goods escaping California ad valorem taxes. T he U nion Pacific Railroad reports carloadings for the Las V egas Basin in 1953 as 29,936 carloads forw arded (82 per day average) and 8,787 received. T h e N ellis A ir F orce Base, located approxim ately 8 miles northeasterly o f Las V egas, is an A ir F orce school and one o f the busiest airfields in the w orld. There are m ore than 30,000 takeoffs and landings per m onth— one every 30 seconds during a flying day. T he purpose of the Base is to give fighter pilots final com bat training in jet aircraft. A ll pilot candidates have previously received flight training. T h ey are graduates of military flight schools, senior A ir F orce officers, and foreign pilots o f countries in the M utual D efense A ssistance program . In short, the function o f Nellis is to teach a qualified pilot to use a jet fighter as a w eapon o f com bat. Nellis A F B has been classified by the Departm ent o f D efense as a permanent military installation. Com prehensive statistics are not available by reason o f m ilitary security.' H ow ever, its operation is estim ated to involve an expenditure o f about $30,000,000 annually. It em ploys approxim ately 500 civilians with an annual payroll o f about $2,000,000 and has about 4,000 m ilitary personnel with a payroll o f about $10,000,000 annually. Supply, service and construction contracts let in the Las V egas area have recently am ounted to about $600,000 annually. N early half o f the m ilitary personnel are married and m ost o f these reside with their families in the Las V egas area. A lthough many of the m ilitary families live in the housing projects provided near Nellis, substantial numbers live in Las V egas residential areas. Near to the A ir Force Base, the N avy has an estim ated $9,000,000 installation under construc­tion. This is the Lake M ead N aval A m m unition D ep ot w hich will provide am m unition storage. It is expected that this facility w ill require about 100 civilian em ployees and 900 m ilitary personnel, with payrolls in proportion. A gricu ltu re: Agricultural developm ent is relatively small, although the grow in g season is long and the winters mild. T he scarcity o f water m ay have been the im peding factor. O nly about 37,500 acres w ould be rated suitable for agriculture if alkali and drainage conditions were favorable. The total am ount o f land under irrigation either for farm ing or for grazing, is less than 5,000 acres. It has been estim ated that the same land areas have been under irrigated cultivation since 1912 T otal persons in agricultural occupations in Clark County in 1950 was only 514 (3 % of total em ployed population). O ccupation Statistics, 1950: T he follow in g table on occupation characteristics of Clark County and the cities o f Las V egas, N orth Las V egas, and H enderson is based on data from the 1950 census. G row th since 1950 has been substantial, so in many instances the 1950 figures m ay no longer be representative. 6 V