Nevada
Nevada is a state in the Western United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 32nd most populous, but the 9th least densely populated of the U. S. states. Nearly three-quarters of Nevada's people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the state's four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada's capital, however, is Carson City. Nevada is known as the "Silver State" because of the importance of silver to its history and economy, it is known as the "Battle Born State", because it achieved statehood during the Civil War. Nevada is desert and semi-arid, much of it within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada lie on the western edge. About 86% of the state's land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military.
Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute and Washoe tribes inhabited the land, now Nevada. The first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish, they called the region Nevada because of the snow. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, became part of Mexico when it gained independence in 1821; the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a population boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31, 1864, as the second of two states added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws. In 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century.
Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevada's largest employer, with mining continuing as a substantial sector of the economy: Nevada is the fourth-largest producer of gold in the world; the name "Nevada" comes from meaning "snow-covered", after the Sierra Nevada. Most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the TRAP vowel. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the PALM vowel. Although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators and never received a vote; the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. At one time, the state's official tourism organization, TravelNevada, stylized the name of the state as "Nevăda", with a breve mark over the a indicating the locally preferred pronunciation, available as a license plate design.
Nevada is entirely within the Basin and Range Province, is broken up by many north-south mountain ranges. Most of these ranges have endorheic valleys between them, which belies the image portrayed by the term Great Basin. Much of the northern part of the state is within the Great Basin, a mild desert that experiences hot temperatures in the summer and cold temperatures in the winter. Moisture from the Arizona Monsoon will cause summer thunderstorms; the state's highest recorded temperature was 125 °F in Laughlin on June 29, 1994. The coldest recorded temperature was −52 °F set in San Jacinto in 1972, in the northeastern portion of the state; the Humboldt River crosses the state from east to west across the northern part of the state, draining into the Humboldt Sink near Lovelock. Several rivers drain from the Sierra Nevada eastward, including the Walker and Carson rivers. All of these rivers are endorheic basins, ending in Walker Lake, Pyramid Lake, the Carson Sink, respectively. However, not all of Nevada is within the Great Basin.
Tributaries of the Snake River drain the far north, while the Colorado River, which forms much of the boundary with Arizona, drains much of southern Nevada. The mountain ranges, some of which have peaks above 13,000 feet, harbor lush forests high above desert plains, creating sky islands for endemic species; the valleys are no lower in elevation than 3,000 feet, while some in central Nevada are above 6,000 feet. The southern third of the state, where the Las Vegas area is situated, is within the Mojave Desert; the area is closer to the Arizona Monsoon in the summer. The terrain is lower below 4,000 feet, creating conditions for hot summer days and cool to chilly winter nights. Nevada and California have by far the longest diagonal line as a state boundary at just over 400 miles; this line begins in Lake Tahoe nearly
Colorado Belle
The Colorado Belle is a casino hotel on the banks of the Colorado River in Laughlin, Nevada and operated by Golden Entertainment. The Colorado Belle is a fixed building made to look like a six-deck replica of a 19th-century Mississippi River paddle steamer riverboat, it has 1,168 rooms in two seven-story towers. The casino has 42,706 sq ft of gaming space with 750 slot machines, 20 table games, a keno lounge, 10 poker tables, a race and sports book; the hotel has three restaurants. The Loading Dock, Big Easy Deli, Pints brewery, two gift shops; the resort includes two pools, a fitness room, a koi pond, an arcade. Advanced Patent Technology, a slot machine maker and slot route operator, announced plans in 1979 to build a hotel and casino, with the hotel to be managed by Ramada. Construction began in October, as a joint venture with John Fulton, a Southern California restaurateur and the casino was opened on November 10, 1980. In 1983, a preliminary agreement was reached to sell the casino to a group including attorney William Morris and Circus Circus Enterprises executives William Bennett and William Pennington for $1.6 million but Morris quit the deal a month later.
The next year, Circus Circus bought the casino for $4 million, made plans to move it to make room for an expansion of its neighboring Edgewater Laughlin. Plans for a new Colorado Belle hotel and casino were unveiled in 1985 and it opened on July 1, 1987, at a cost of $80 million. Circus Circus Enterprises became Mandalay Resort Group in 1999 and was bought by MGM Mirage in 2005. In June 2007, MGM Mirage sold the Colorado Belle and the Edgewater to a partnership of Anthony Marnell III and Sher Gaming for a total of $200 million. In January 2019, Golden Entertainment bought the Colorado Belle and the Edgewater from Marnell and Sher for a total of $190 million. Official website Media related to Colorado Belle Hotel & Casino at Wikimedia Commons
Aquarius Casino Resort
The Aquarius Casino Resort is a hotel and casino located on the banks of the Colorado River in Laughlin, Nevada. It is the largest hotel in Laughlin; the Aquarius has two 18-floor towers with 1,907 suites that overlook the Colorado River. The casino, with an area of 57,070 square feet, has 1,240 slot machines, 33 table games, a race and sports book; the property includes a business center, fitness center and tennis courts. The Aquarius has a tour boat, the Celebration, which takes visitors on a tour of the Colorado River area of Laughlin. On August 1, 1990, the property opened as the Flamingo Hilton Laughlin. In October 2000, the hotel's name was changed to the Flamingo Laughlin. On November 29, 2005, Harrah's Entertainment announced plans to sell the resort to American Casino & Entertainment Properties; the $170-million sale closed on May 19, 2006. ACEP was allowed to continue using the Flamingo name for up to six months after the sale; the Flamingo Laughlin became the Aquarius Casino Resort on November 24, 2006.
In 2008, ACEP completed $54 million in renovations at the Aquarius. In October 2017, Golden Entertainment purchased ACEP, adding the Aquarius and three other casinos to its portfolio; the Aquarius features entertainment appearing in Splash Cabaret for free, occasional stage shows and musical reviews in the Aquarius Pavilion. Official website Media related to Aquarius Casino Resort at Wikimedia Commons
Boyd Gaming
Boyd Gaming Corporation is an American gaming and hospitality company based in Paradise, Nevada. The company continues to be run by founder Sam Boyd's family under the management of Sam's son, Bill Boyd, who serves as the company's executive chairman after retiring as CEO in January 2008; as of December 31, 2009, the 15 wholly owned properties had 7,550 hotel rooms. It had 812,500 square feet of casino space with 21,400 slot machines and 425 table games. Gaming revenue is 75% of total gross revenue. Boyd Gaming's history dates to 1941, when founder Sam Boyd first arrived in Las Vegas with his family. After being hired as a dealer, Sam Boyd worked his way up through the ranks of the Las Vegas casino industry, first to pit boss shift boss, he saved enough to buy a small interest in the Sahara Hotel and Casino. Sam Boyd first partnered with his son Bill in 1962, when the two teamed up to acquire the Eldorado Casino in Henderson, Nevada. Bill, a practicing attorney, acquired his first stake in the Eldorado by doing its legal work.
Sam would go on to manage the Eldorado full-time after the Mint was sold in 1968. Although the Boyd family had been involved in the Las Vegas casino industry for decades, Boyd Gaming Corporation wasn't founded until January 1, 1975, when the company was formed to develop and operate the California Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas. Known as the Boyd Group, the company had 75 investors. Boyd Gaming embarked on its first expansion in 1979, when it opened Sam's Town Hotel and Gambling Hall on Boulder Highway at Nellis Boulevard. Considered one of the first "locals" properties in Las Vegas, Sam's Town helped inaugurate the development of Las Vegas' "Boulder Strip." During these first two decades in operation and Bill Boyd developed a reputation for running a squeaky-clean operation. As a result, Nevada regulators turned to the Boyds for help following an investigation of skimming operations at the Stardust and Fremont casinos in the mid-1980s; the properties were notorious at the time for their extensive skimming operations.
In 1984, after leveling a $3 million fine against the Stardust for skimming, the Nevada Gaming Commission asked to Boyds to run the property's gaming operations. When the Stardust was taken over by the reputable Boyd family, they were surprised by its huge profits, now that every penny of income was being recorded. Ex-FBI agent William F. Roemer Jr. longtime senior agent of the FBI's organized-crime squad in Chicago and an expert in Las Vegas doings, said, "The amount of skim had been so heavy that the profit and loss statement did not present a true picture of the gold mine that the Stardust was." After several years of successful operations, Boyd Gaming acquired the Stardust and Fremont in 1985. Company founder Sam Boyd died on January 15, 1993, at the age of 82, was succeeded as Chief Executive Officer by Bill Boyd. In July of the same year, Boyd Gaming held its initial public offering of stock, debuting on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol "BYD." Funds from the IPO supplied Boyd Gaming with a source of capital for expansion, the company embarked on a period of aggressive growth.
The company acquired the Eldorado and Jokers Wild in 1993. The company's first expansion outside of Nevada came in 1994, when Boyd Gaming opened Sam's Town in Tunica, Miss. Expansions included: Silver Star Hotel and Casino, owned by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians. Boyd Gaming's most ambitious expansion project came in 2003, when the company opened the $1.1 billion Borgata Hotel Casino in Atlantic City, N. J. A joint venture with MGM Resorts International, Borgata was the first new casino property to open in Atlantic City in 13 years, emerged as the market's leading property by gaming revenue. Borgata is by far Boyd Gaming's largest property, supplies more than a third of the company's overall profits. Less than a year after Borgata opened, Boyd Gaming announced plans to acquire Coast Casinos, Inc. one of the largest operators of locals casinos in the Las Vegas market. Completed on July 1, 2004, the $1.3 billion acquisition gave Boyd Gaming four additional Las Vegas properties—Suncoast.
The Coast acquisition included the yet-to-be completed South Coast, located five miles south of the Strip on Las Vegas Boulevard. Boyd Gaming completed the project and opened its doors on December 22, 2005. Boyd Gaming operated the property for less than a year before selling it to former Coast CEO Michael Gaughan in 2006. In 2006, Boyd Gaming turned its focus to what would have been the largest project in its history: Echelon, a $4.8 billion resort complex at the site of the Stardust. In
Tropicana Laughlin
The Tropicana Laughlin is a hotel and casino in Laughlin, Nevada. It is operated by Eldorado Resorts; the hotel has 1,498 guest rooms and suites, located in the 12-story Casino Tower and the 24-story Promenade Tower. The casino has 21 table games, it includes the restaurants: The Steakhouse, Passaggio Italian Gardens, Carnegie's Café, Taqueria Del Rio, Round House Buffet, Poolside Café, Dips & Dogs and Victory Plaza. In June 1988, the property opened under the name Ramada Express. In 1993, an expansion was completed that included the Promenade Tower, the Town Square area, additional casino space and restaurants, a parking garage. In May 2007, Columbia Sussex announced that the Ramada Express would change its name to the Tropicana Express; the hotel opened as the Tropicana Express on July 28, 2007. It was renamed as Tropicana Laughlin in 2009. In 2018, Gaming and Leisure Properties acquired the real estate of the Tropicana and Eldorado Resorts acquired its operating business, under lease from GLP, as part of the two companies' acquisition of Tropicana Entertainment.
The Tropicana has a 9,000-square-foot indoor entertainment venue. It has Tango's Lounge, which has live entertainment, the Eclipse Bar and a premium slot lounge, the Grand Junction; the Tropicana operated a 3 ft narrow gauge train in a loop in the grounds that could be ridden for free. Rolling stock consisted of open passenger cars, a 4-4-0 locomotive replica of the Virginia and Truckee No. 12 Genoa named No. 7 Gambler powered by a diesel engine inside its tender and a Plymouth Locomotive Works engine named No. 11 Lucky Lady used as a spare. On April 14, 2012, Tropicana Entertainment donated the rolling stock to the Las Vegas Railroad Society. All equipment was trucked from Laughlin to be stored in Las Vegas until a new track is installed in the society's proposed park. Official website
National Park Service rustic
National Park Service rustic — sometimes colloquially called Parkitecture — is a style of architecture that developed in the early and middle 20th century in the United States National Park Service through its efforts to create buildings that harmonized with the natural environment. Since its founding in 1916, the NPS sought to design and build visitor facilities without visually interrupting the natural or historic surroundings; the early results were characterized by intensive use of hand labor and a rejection of the regularity and symmetry of the industrial world, reflecting connections with the Arts and Crafts movement and American Picturesque architecture. Architects, landscape architects and engineers combined native wood and stone with convincingly native styles to create visually appealing structures that seemed to fit within the majestic landscapes. Examples of the style can be found in numerous types of National Park structures, including entrance gateways and lodges, park roads and bridges, visitor centers, trail shelters, informational kiosks, mundane maintenance and support facilities.
Many of these buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The first national parks were a response to the romanticism that restructured the American concept of wilderness in the nineteenth century; as seen in the artistry of John James Audubon, James Fenimore Cooper, Thomas Cole, George Catlin, William Cullen Bryant and others, the idea of wilderness developed during the course of the nineteenth century from an entity to be feared and conquered into a resource that should be preserved and treasured. The early wilderness preservation philosophies — expressed through painting, poetry and photography — helped lay the foundations for the acceptance of the first national parks. Beginning with Yosemite in 1864 and Yellowstone in 1872, public lands were set aside as parks. Early administration of these reserves was haphazard. Yosemite fell prey to a politicized board of state commissions, while Yellowstone was given an unpaid superintendent and no appropriations. In 1883, because of extensive poaching and political scandal, the Army was authorized to protect Yellowstone although it was not called upon by the Secretary of the Interior to do so until 1886.
The Army stayed in Yellowstone in an administrative capacity until 1916. After 1890, the Army was called on to protect Sequoia, the General Grant tree, Yosemite. In each of the Army parks, the War Department was compelled to erect basic facilities for its own use. Fort Yellowstone, was the most important of these complexes; the army buildings there were constructed to standard Army specifications. The Army had no direct interest in the landscape, this was echoed in their architecture. In those early parks where the Interior Department retained administrative responsibility, government buildings were limited to primitive, vernacular expressions of facility need. Crude frame shacks, log cabins, or tent frames sufficed; these early government facilities could be simple because responsibility for housing and transporting the park visitor was delegated to the park concessioners. The early park concessioners received little supervision, their structures were typical makeshift frontier efforts. Not until after the completion of the northern transcontinental railroads in the 1890s, did more advanced concessioner facilities appear in Yellowstone, for example.
Among the first of these was the Lake Hotel, constructed by the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1890. The formal classicism of this structure, with its ionic columns, three projecting porticos and symmetrical façade, made it clear that the building owed nothing to its setting; the railroads brought the first major developments to the parks. At the same time, as a part of this process, they introduced their architectural and engineering expertise; the railroads' search for architectural styles suitable for park settings occurred at a time when landscape architecture was beginning to exert major influence on architectural design and theory. In 1842, landscape architect Andrew Jackson Downing had publicized his ideas on "picturesque" landscape and the importance of nature in architectural design in his distributed book Cottage Residences. Several decades Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr. a friend and pupil of Downing, working in conjunction with architects such as Henry Hobson Richardson, strengthened the connections between architecture and landscape architecture.
Building forms responded to landscaping becoming an integral part of the design. While buildings were constructed of natural materials such as native stone and shingles, few were intentionally "rustic." Early "rustic" examples were "follies" — gazebos and small pavilions. Larger buildings intentionally rustic in style appeared in the Adirondack Mountains in the 1870s, creating the style known as Adirondack Architecture; this influence began to appear in park architecture after 1900. As the Park Service became more organized in the 1920s, it established a policy of rustic design. Promulgated by landscape architect Thomas Chalmers Vint, with support from architect Herbert Maier, rustic design became entrenched as standard practice in the Park Service. During the 1930s, the Park Service administered Civilian Conservation Corps projects in state parks, used the opportunity to promote rustic design on a widespread scale. However, in the post-World War II period, it became apparent that facilities could not be built in sufficient quantity to contend with a huge increase in automobile-borne park visitation.
In the Mission 66 program and Maier consciously abandoned the rustic style in favor of a leaner and more expediti
Slot machine
A slot machine, known variously as a fruit machine, the slots, poker machine/pokies, or slot, is a casino gambling machine which creates a game of chance for its customers. Its standard layout is a display with three or more reels which rotate when a lever is pulled or button pushed. Slot machines are known as one-armed bandits because they were operated by pulling upon a large mechanical lever on the side of the machine, because of their ability to empty a player's pockets and wallet as a thief would. Many modern machines are still equipped with a legacy lever in addition to the button. Slot machines include one or more currency detectors that validate the form of payment, whether coin, cash, or token; the machine pays off according to patterns of symbols appearing on its display. Slot machines are the most popular gambling method in casinos and constitute about 70 percent of the average US casino's income. Digital technology has resulted in variations on the original slot machine concept. Since the player is playing a video game, manufacturers are able to offer more interactive elements, such as advanced bonus rounds and more varied video graphics.
The "slot machine" term derives from the slots on the machine for retrieving coins. "Fruit machine" comes from the traditional fruit images on the spinning reels, such as lemons and cherries. Sittman and Pitt of Brooklyn, New York, U. S. developed a gambling machine in 1891, a precursor to the modern slot machine. It contained five drums holding a total of 50 card was based on poker; this machine proved popular and soon many bars in the city had one or more of the machines. Players would insert a nickel and pull a lever, which would spin the drums and the cards they held, the player hoping for a good poker hand. There was no direct payout mechanism, so a pair of kings might get the player a free beer, whereas a royal flush could pay out cigars or drinks, the prizes wholly dependent on what was on offer at the local establishment. To make the odds better for the house, two cards were removed from the deck: the ten of spades and the jack of hearts, which doubles the odds against winning a royal flush.
The drums could be rearranged to further reduce a player's chance of winning. Due to the vast number of possible wins with the original poker card-based game, it proved impossible to come up with a way to make a machine capable of making an automatic payout for all possible winning combinations. Somewhere between 1887 and 1895, Charles Fey of San Francisco, California, U. S. devised a much simpler automatic mechanism with three spinning reels containing a total of five symbols – horseshoes, spades, a Liberty Bell. The bell gave the machine its name. By replacing ten cards with five symbols and using three reels instead of five drums, the complexity of reading a win was reduced, allowing Fey to devise an effective automatic payout mechanism. Three bells in a row produced ten nickels. Liberty Bell spawned a thriving mechanical gaming device industry; when the use of these gambling devices was banned in his home state after a few years, Fey still could not keep up with demand for the game elsewhere.
The Liberty Bell machine was so popular. Thus in 1907, manufacturer Herbert Mills from Chicago produced a slot machine called the Operator Bell. By 1908 lots of "bell" machines were installed in most cigar stores, bowling alleys and barber shops. Early machines, including an 1899 "Liberty Bell", are now part of the Nevada State Museum's Fey Collection. Other early machines, such as the trade stimulator, gave out winnings in the form of fruit-flavoured chewing gums with pictures of the flavours as symbols on the reels; the popular cherry and melon symbols derive from this machine. The BAR symbol now common in slot machines was derived from an early logo of the Bell-Fruit Gum Company; the payment of food prizes was a used technique to avoid laws against gambling in a number of states, for this reason a number of gumball and other vending machines were regarded with mistrust by the courts. The two Iowa cases of State v. Ellis and State v. Striggles are both used in classes on criminal law to illustrate the concept of reliance upon authority as it relates to the axiomatic ignorantia juris non excusat.
In these cases, a mint vending machine was declared to be a gambling device because by chance the machine would give the next user a number of tokens exchangeable for more candy. Despite the fact that the result of the next use would be displayed on the machine, the courts ruled that "he machine appealed to the player's propensity to gamble, and, vice."In 1963, Bally developed the first electromechanical slot machine, called Money Honey. The electromechanical approach of the 1960s allowed Money Honey to be the first slot machine with a bottomless hopper and automatic payout of up to 500 coins without the help of an attendant; the popularity of this machine led to the increasing predominance of electronic games, the side lever soon became vestigial. The first true video slot machine was developed in 1976 in Kearny Mesa, California by the Las-Vegas based Fortune Coin Co; this slot machine used
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