1.
Las Vegas
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The city anchors the Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area and is the largest city within the greater Mojave Desert. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city known primarily for its gambling, shopping, fine dining, entertainment and it is the leading financial, commercial, and cultural center for Nevada. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World and it is a top three destination in the United States for business conventions and a global leader in the hospitality industry, claiming more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any city in the world. Today, Las Vegas annually ranks as one of the worlds most visited tourist destinations. The citys tolerance for numerous forms of adult entertainment earned it the title of Sin City, and has made Las Vegas a popular setting for literature, films, television programs, Las Vegas was settled in 1905 and officially incorporated in 1911. At the close of the 20th century, it was the most populated American city founded within that century, population growth has accelerated since the 1960s, and between 1990 and 2000 the population nearly doubled, increasing by 85. 2%. Rapid growth has continued into the 21st century, and according to a 2013 estimate, perhaps the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled there 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes followed at least 2,000 years ago, a young Mexican scout named Rafael Rivera is credited as the first non-Native American to encounter the valley, in 1829. Trader Antonio Armijo led a 60-man party along the Spanish Trail to Los Angeles, the area was named Las Vegas, which is Spanish for the meadows, as it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as desert spring waters for westward travelers. The year 1844 marked the arrival of John C, frémont, whose writings helped lure pioneers to the area. Downtown Las Vegas Fremont Street is named after him, eleven years later members of the LDS Church chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies. The fort was abandoned several years afterward, the remainder of this Old Mormon Fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres of adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city,1931 was a pivotal year for Las Vegas. At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks and this year also witnessed the beginning of construction on nearby Hoover Dam. The influx of workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression. The construction work was completed in 1935, in 1941, the Las Vegas Army Air Corps Gunnery School was established. Currently known as Nellis Air Force Base, it is home to the team called the Thunderbirds
2.
Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a 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 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 Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, 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, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
3.
Fremont Street
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Fremont Street is a street in Las Vegas, Nevada, and is the second most famous street in the Las Vegas Valley after the Las Vegas Strip. The abundance of signs, like cowboy Vegas Vic, earned the street the nickname of Glitter Gulch. Fremont Street formerly carried several national highways, including U. S. Route 93, US95, US93 and US95 have been rerouted along Interstate 515, while US466 has been decommissioned. The section of Fremont Street east of the Fremont East District is currently designated Nevada State Route 582, Fremont Street dates back to 1905, when Las Vegas itself was founded. Fremont Street was the first paved street in Las Vegas in 1925, Fremont Street also carried the shields of U. S. Route 93, US95, and US466 before the construction of the interstates. While gambling was well established prior to being legalized, the Northern Club in 1931 received one of the first 6 gambling licenses issued in Nevada, Glitter Gulch was closed to vehicle traffic in September,1994 to begin construction on the Fremont Street Experience. The 1964 Elvis Presley film Viva Las Vegas featured nighttime footage of Fremont Street during the opening credits. The 1971 James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever featured a scene in which James Bond, running from Las Vegas police. The 1987 music video for the song I Still Havent Found What Im Looking For by U2 was filmed on Fremont Street and featured the members wandering around. In the 1987 anthology film, Aria, one of the segments involves two young lovers driving down Fremont Street before attempting suicide. The second season of the NBC show Crime Story featured Fremont Street in its opening credits, 1998s Very Bad Things featured Fremont Street in the movie. 1990s Honey, I Blew Up the Kid prominently featured Fremont Street in the movie, 1991s Cool World showed all the animation coming out of the Union Plaza Hotel and going down Fremont Street. In 1994, Glitter Gulch was featured prominently in the TV Miniseries The Stand, the 1997 comedy Vegas Vacation includes a few scenes on Fremont Street. In a 2005 release, Panic. at the Disco released a song about Fremont Street called Build God, Fremont Street appears in the 2004 video game Grand Theft Auto, San Andreas as The Old Las Venturas Strip. The 2007 film Next, has Nicolas Cages character entering the Golden Nugget from the Fremont Street Experience, Ice Cubes music video for Chrome and Paint took place on Fremont Street, with Ice Cube in a lowrider. Heavily referenced in the Tom Waits song Mr. Siegal, featured at the beginning of the TV series - CSI season 7 finale episode 24. Featured in the credits of the TV series Vega$. Magician & illusionist, Criss Angel, has done many demonstrations there, featured in The Real World, Las Vegas
4.
Young Electric Sign Company
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YESCO is a privately owned manufacturer of electric signs based in Salt Lake City, founded by Thomas Young in 1920. The company provides design, fabrication, installation and maintenance of signs, the company was created by Thomas Young on March 20,1920. The young sign painter had left England just a decade earlier to immigrate with his family to Ogden, in the beginning, his shop specialized in coffin plates, gold leaf window lettering, lighted signs and painted advertisements. As the science of lighting and sign-making advanced, so did Tom Young’s signs, in 1933, YESCO opened a branch office in the Apache Hotel in Las Vegas. The company erected their first neon sign in Las Vegas for the Boulder Club, YESCO – soon became recognized as a leader in the sign industry, tackling large and complex sign projects. For example, it erected the first neon sign in Las Vegas for the Boulder Club in the late ’30s. YESCO continues to design, build, install and maintain signs, in recent years, YESCO has built a substantial outdoor digital media division of its business. YESCO has approximately 1,000 employees, more than 40 offices, additional smaller manufacturing and service facilities are located through the United States and Canada. YESCO offers sign and lighting service franchises in states east of Colorado, in 2015 Young Electric Sign Company sold YESCO Electronics, a child company, to Samsung. In this sale Samsung gained the YESCO Electronics manufacturing plant and all the employees of YESCO Electronics, YESCO Electronics is known for their outdoor electronic media signs. NBC ushered in the millennium with a new YESCO “message globe” in its NBC Experience store, the electronic sign quickly became recognized as one of the most distinctive electronic displays in the world. From the outside of the building, it looks like a brilliant illuminated globe, the 35’-diameter hemisphere is covered with thousands of full-color LEDs. Colorful video and special effects, along with animations provided by YESCO’s media services group, are displayed on the globe’s surface, when it was first turned on, it literally stopped traffic on West 49th Street. Perhaps the world’s most recognized electronic sign, Vegas Vic was designed by, upon its installation in 1951 over the Pioneer Club on historical Fremont Street, the 40-tall electronic cowboy immediately became Las Vegas’s unofficial greeter. The 135-foot tall marquee features a 100-foot high, 50-foot wide, concave, double-faced LED message center with a first-of-its-kind “moving eraser. ”Conceived by Steve Wynn, the eraser weighs 62,000 pounds, and is counterbalanced by a 62, 000-pound weight inside the sign. The sign uses 4,377,600 LEDs and the eraser is powered by a 300 horsepower motor at its base that runs a gear, some of the retired signs include the sign for the Silver Slipper casino and Aladdins lamp from the first version of Aladdin Casino. In 2004 the Binions Horseshoe sign Harrahs, YESCO installed the vaulted canopy arching 90 feet above four blocks of Fremont Street. Born in Sunderland, England, in 1895, Thomas Young was 15 years old when his family emigrated to Ogden, hard-working and talented, the boy applied his passion to making signs, becoming a Master Sign Writer
5.
Martin Stern Jr.
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Martin Stern Jr. was an American architect who was most widely known for his large scale designs and structures in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is credited with originating the concept of the structurally integrated casino resort complex in Las Vegas, the International Hotel, which later became the Las Vegas Hilton, and the first MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, two pivotal Martin Stern Jr. When it was completed, the International was the largest hotel in the world and it is now the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino. The first MGM Grand, larger than the Empire State Building and in its turn the largest hotel in the world, as the Telegraph observed, this loss only seven years after the hotel was completed was devastating to Stern. The MGM Grand was nonetheless rebuilt within eight months and reopened and it was sold in 1985 and is now Ballys Las Vegas. Nearly half of Martin Stern Jr. s projects were in Nevada while another quarter were in California, the following partial listing by decades sketches less than one third of Sterns work. 1955, Encino Village, a subdivision of 400 homes in Encino, Los Angeles,1955, Holiday Hotel Reno in Reno, Nevada - the birthplace of the World Series of Poker. 1958-61, Mountain Shadows in Scottsdale, Arizona 1959, Del Webbs Towne House, on Market between 7th and 8th Streets in San Francisco, California. 1960, Paradise Valley Country Club, Paradise Valley, Arizona 1963, Ships Coffee Shop, Los Angeles, California,1963, Beverly Hills, California Public Library. 1964, Kaanapali Beach Hotel, Maui, Hawaii 1964, Del Webbs Ocean House in Mission Bay, San Diego,1966, The Silver Slipper Hotel, known for its giant rotating rooftop silver slipper, Las Vegas. Purchased in 1968 by Howard Hughes,1969, Kings Castle in Incline Village, Nevada 1969, International Hotel, with Kirk Kirkorian. The International Hotel was purchased by the Hilton Hotels Corporation in 1970,1973, MGM Grand Hotel and Casino with Kirk Kirkorian. Rebuilt after the 1980 MGM Grand fire, sold in 1986 and reopened as Ballys Las Vegas. 1974, Las Vegas Hilton Benihana Village
6.
Off-roading
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Off-roading is the activity of driving or riding a vehicle on unsurfaced roads or tracks, made of materials such as sand, gravel, riverbeds, mud, snow, rocks, and other natural terrain. Types of off-roading range in intensity, from leisure drives with unmodified vehicles to competitions with customized vehicles, off-roaders have been met with criticism for the environmental damage incurred by their vehicles. There have also been extensive debates over the role of government in regulating the sport, traveling on off-road terrains require vehicles capable of accommodating off-road driving such as ATVs. These vehicles accommodate off road conditions with extended ground clearance, off-road tires, some manufacturers offer vehicles specifically meant for off-road use. Some examples of recreational off-roading include the following, Dune bashing is a form of off-roading on sand dunes, a Large sport utility vehicle such as the Toyota Land Cruiser is an example of vehicle used. Vehicles driven on dunes may be equipped with a cage in case of an overturn, Similar to auto-racing, experience and skill is required to maneuver the car. Before entering the desert in an everyday-use SUV or pickup, it is essential to reduce the tire pressure. This is done to more traction by increasing the footprint of the tire and, therefore. For example, tires with a pressure of 35 psi would be reduced to approximately 12-14 psi. A common modification is to fit beadlock rims, which allow tire pressure to be lowered further, without risking tire. Upon entering the desert, it is common to meet with a pack of vehicles, the group leader then leads the pack through the stunts in single file. The main reason for this technique is to prevent vehicles from losing track of direction, high speed racing in the open desert includes chases and racing on a rough desert terrain with numerous pots and bumps at the maximum speed. Drivers mostly use RWD and 4WD trucks with long travel suspension, wide stance on the front and this type of trucks is often called Prerunner. Routes in Africa generally have obstacles in largely uninhabited and uncharted terrain and these circuit routes are over 50 km and usually around 300 km long This is a type of travel undertaken with a 4x4 that mostly goes over tracks and contains some bits of off-roading. Traditionally these trips are going through relatively uninhabited areas, popular are the deserts in Tunisia, Morocco and other North African countries, continent crossing trips through Africa, trips through Mongolia or Northern Scandinavia. Due to the weight the suspension is often reinforced with stronger springs. Green laning is a pursuit, generally suitable for any four-wheel-drive vehicle. The term green lane refers to the fact that the routes are predominantly along unsurfaced tracks, forest tracks, in the UK they are usually roads which are not maintained in any way and will often include fords
7.
Hunter S. Thompson
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Hunter Stockton Thompson was an American journalist and author, and the founder of the gonzo journalism movement. Born in Louisville, Kentucky, to a family, Thompson had a turbulent youth after the death of his father left the family in poverty. He was unable to finish high school as he was incarcerated for 60 days after abetting a robbery. He subsequently joined the United States Air Force before moving into journalism and he traveled frequently, including stints in California, Puerto Rico, and Brazil, before settling in Aspen, Colorado, in the early 1960s. Thompson became internationally known with the publication of Hells Angels, The Strange, for his research on the book he had spent a year living and riding with the Angels, experiencing their lives and hearing their stories first-hand. The work he remains best known for, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, politically minded, Thompson ran unsuccessfully for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, in 1970, on the Freak Power ticket. Thompsons output notably declined from the mid-1970s, as he struggled with the consequences of fame and he was also known for his lifelong use of alcohol and illegal drugs, his love of firearms, and his iconoclastic contempt for authoritarianism. He remarked, I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, after a bout of health problems, Thompson committed suicide at the age of 67. In accordance with his wishes, his ashes were fired out of a cannon in a ceremony funded by his friend Johnny Depp and attended by friends including then-Senator John Kerry, hari Kunzru wrote that the true voice of Thompson is revealed to be that of American moralist. One who often makes himself ugly to expose the ugliness he sees around him and his parents were introduced to each other by a friend from Jacks fraternity at the University of Kentucky in September 1934, and married on November 2,1935. Thompsons first name came from an ancestor on his mothers side. On December 2,1943, when Thompson was six years old, on July 3,1952, when Thompson was 14 years old, his father, aged 58, died of myasthenia gravis. Hunter and his brothers, Davison Wheeler and James Garnet, were raised by their mother, Hunter also had a much older half-brother, James Thompson, Jr. from his fathers first marriage, who was not part of the Thompson household. Virginia worked as a librarian to support her children, and is described as having become a heavy drinker following her husbands death, ultimately he never joined any sports teams in high school. Thompson attended I. N. Bloom Elementary School, Highland Middle School, also in 1952, he was accepted as a member of the Athenaeum Literary Association, a school-sponsored literary and social club that dated to 1862. Its members at the time, generally drawn from Louisvilles wealthy upper-class families, included Porter Bibb, during this time Thompson read and admired J. P. Donleavys The Ginger Man. As an Athenaeum member, Thompson contributed articles to and helped produce the clubs yearbook The Spectator, the group ejected Thompson in 1955, citing his legal problems. Charged as an accessory to robbery after being in a car with the perpetrator and he served 31 days and, a week after his release, enlisted in the United States Air Force
8.
Oscar Zeta Acosta
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Oscar Zeta Acosta was an American attorney, politician, novelist and activist in the Chicano Movement. He was most well known for his novels Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo and The Revolt of the Cockroach People, Thompson characterized him as a heavyweight Samoan attorney, Dr. Gonzo, in his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Acosta disappeared in 1974 during a trip in Mazatlan, Mexico, Acosta was born in El Paso, Texas to Manuel and Juanita Acosta, from Mexico and El Paso, respectively. Oscar was the child born but second to survive childhood. He had a brother, Roberto, born in 1934. After the family moved to California, the children were raised in the small San Joaquin Valley rural community of Riverbank, California, Acostas father was drafted during World War II. After finishing high school, Acosta joined the U. S. Air Force, following his discharge, Acosta worked his way through Modesto Junior College. He went on to San Francisco State University where he studied writing, becoming the first member of his family to get a college education. He attended night classes at San Francisco Law School and passed the California Bar exam in 1966, in 1967, Acosta began working locally as an antipoverty attorney for the East Oakland Legal Aid Society. In 1968, Acosta moved to East Los Angeles and joined the Chicano Movement as an activist attorney, defending Chicano groups and activists. He represented the Chicano 13 of the East L. A. walkouts, Rodolfo Gonzales, members of the Brown Berets and his controversial defenses earned him the ire of the LAPD, who often followed and harassed him. Local law enforcement and the FBI linked Acosta to an organization called the Chicano Liberation Front. In 1970, Acosta ran for sheriff of Los Angeles County against Peter J. Pitchess, during the campaign, he was jailed for two days for contempt of court. He vowed that if elected, he would do away with the Sheriffs Department as it was then constituted. Known for loud ties and a flowered attaché case with a Chicano Power sticker, Acosta lost to Pitchess 1.3 million votes, in 1972, Acosta published his first novel, Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo, about a lawyer fighting for the rights of a marginalized people. In 1973, Acosta published The Revolt of the Cockroach People, in the summer of 1967, Acosta met author Hunter S. Thompson. In 1971, Thompson wrote an article on Acosta and the injustice in the barrios of East Los Angeles, for Rolling Stone magazine, titled Strange Rumblings in Aztlan. This article also discusses the death of Los Angeles Times columnist Rubén Salazar, Thompson wrote about this trip in his 1972 novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
