LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Long before the “eye in the sky” security systems at Las Vegas casinos, the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino probably watched gamblers through a strip of mirrored ceiling panels, with observers shimmying along a crawlspace on a cart.
A tour that went inside the guts of the oldest Las Vegas hotel-casino on Thursday revealed several little-known secrets from the historic building’s past, including the public’s first look at a room that had been the back portion of the kitchen.
The Golden Gate was already the first hotel-casino in Las Vegas when gambling was banned in 1910, and it’s widely believed that gambling never really stopped. But proof of that is another matter. A basement that’s off-limits to the public has another room that is rumored to be the site of a bar during Prohibition…