LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — More than 20 years before casinos staked out the Nevada-California border at Primm, the Hacienda Hotel and Casino set up shop on the south end of what became the Las Vegas Strip.
Its location made the Hacienda the first option for gamblers driving in from California. That doesn’t make much of a difference these days, evidenced by the recent closings in Primm.
Three years after the Hacienda’s June 7, 1956, opening, the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign was built 4.5 miles south of the Las Vegas city boundary at Sahara Avenue. Since then, the sign has moved in closer, but the Hacienda marked the last of the big resorts on the Strip until it was imploded in 1996 to make way for Mandalay Bay.
City Cast Las Vegas describes the original resort “like most Vegas hotels of its time — a deluxe motor lodge that expanded to accommodate a growing tourist market.”…