Who were the top ten most influential people in the history and development of Las Vegas (including present-day people)?


   1) Helen Stewart -- In 1879, Archibald Stewart, a rancher in Pioche, Nevada, loaned some money to O.D. Gass, who owned the Las Vegas Ranch. Gass defaulted on the loan, Stewart foreclosed on the 1,000-acre property, and he and his family moved there. Archie Stewart was murdered in 1884, leaving the ranch to his wife. Helen Stewart ran it for the next 20 years, raising five children, hosting travelers, and amassing 1,800 acres and most of the water rights in the valley. In 1901, she sold all but a few acres to the railroad that founded Las Vegas. For the rest of her life, Helen Stewart lived on the land she didn’t sell, and so immersed herself in the society of the young railroad town that she has been known ever since as the First Lady of Las Vegas.

  2) C.P. Squires -- If Helen Stewart was the First Lady, Charles "Pop" Squires was the Father of Las Vegas. Squires came to Las Vegas in 1904 when it was merely a few tents in the dusty desert. He was 39 and had $25,000, with which he planned to establish a bank, hotel, lumberyard, and realty company. Squires bought up property at the original auction for homes and businesses, started the first electric and telephone company, and owned the first successful newspaper, the Las Vegas Age. He was also one of the first southern Nevadans to start agitating for a nearby dam on the Colorado River and was instrumental in its initiation. Pop Squires lived to be 93, passing on in 1958, by which time his dream of a vibrant city was well on its way to being fulfilled.

  3) Walter Bracken -- A 31-year-old civil engineer when he first visited southern Nevada in 1901 on a mission to survey the route of the Salt Lake-Los Angeles Railroad, Walter Bracken was part of the team that recommended buying the Las Vegas Ranch from Helen Stewart for its land and water. Las Vegas’ first postmaster, he also surveyed the town site, setting aside free land for churches, the city library, and the county courthouse. Bracken then became the railroad’s agent, in charge of the Las Vegas Land and Water Company, doling out property for development and directing the installation of the first water system. He virtually ran the town single-handedly for its first 35 years; he died in 1950.

  4) Pat McCarran -- In his time, Pat McCarran was one of the most powerful politicians in the country. He was born in northern Nevada and attended the University of Nevada in Reno where he studied law. He was elected to the Nevada Legislature in 1902 at the age of 26, to the Nevada Supreme Court in 1912, and to the United States Senate in 1932. McCarran promptly built a political machine so large that it came to dominate political life in both Nevada and Washington, D.C. He was fiercely loyal to Nevadans and worked tirelessly on their behalf. He brought industry to Henderson during WW II, fought federal taxes on casinos, and helped establish Nellis Air Force Base and assisted in establishing a civil-aviation system nationwide, for which he’s remembered as the namesake of McCarran International Airport.

  5) Thomas Young -- Thomas Young was born in England, emigrated to the U.S., settled in Ogden, Utah, and exercised his love of drawing by becoming a sign maker. Starting out as an apprentice, in 1920 at the age of 25 he established the Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO). Young traveled the west, sketching signs for commercial customers on scrap paper. In 1931, Young was traveling between Utah and Southern California when he stopped in the remote town of Las Vegas, where gambling had just been legalized. He immediately foresaw bright neon signs adorning the new casinos -- and YESCO never looked back. Today, it claims to be the largest sign company in the country, with more than 1,000 employees and nearly $100 million in revenues, more than a third of which comes from casino business.

  6) Moe Dalitz -- Morris B. Dalitz started out in the family laundry business in Michigan and quickly showed his financial genius in steel, real estate, railroads, even ice cream. But he made his first fortune in bootlegged booze, which he parlayed into casinos in Ohio and Kentucky. When he returned from World War II, the heat was on the illegal gambling joints, so he moved to Las Vegas where casinos were legal, opening the Desert Inn in 1950 at the age of 51. He then proceeded to become a pillar of the community, building golf courses, hospitals, synagogues, and shopping centers; bankrolling Pat McCarran’s political machine; advising Jimmy Hoffa on Teamster loans to casinos; and establishing a reputation as one of the most charitable men ever to live in Las Vegas. Moe Dalitz showed all the old-school bosses how to live a legitimate life and, in the process, helped legitimize Las Vegas itself.

  7) E. Parry Thomas -- Originally from Ogden, Utah, Parry Thomas came to Las Vegas in 1954, sent there to manage the Bank of Las Vegas by his banker boss, who held a stake in it. Thomas quickly recognized the endless opportunities for a lone bank willing to loan capital to the casino business, at a time when no other banks would do so. He approved the first of them, $750,000 to Milton Prell to expand the Sahara, in 1955. And for the next 20 years, Parry Thomas and his partner Jerry Mack were the men to see about borrowing money for the casino industry. For example, Thomas was instrumental in Steve Wynn’s success, early on, by helping him gain control of the Golden Nugget. The Bank of Las Vegas merged with Valley Bank of Reno and took its name; Thomas built the 17-story Valley Bank in downtown in 1975. To honor the partners for financing many UNLV projects, the Thomas and Mack Center was named for them. Las Vegas would have been a very different city if this one banker hadn’t capitalized the casino business.

  8) Jay Sarno -- Writes A.D. Hopkins in The First 100 -- Portraits of Men and Women Who Shaped Las Vegas, "You can get into an argument over who started the Las Vegas Strip, but there’s no question that it was Jay Sarno who changed it forever. The fast-living genius behind Caesars Palace and Circus Circus invented both the fantasy resort and the family resort, twin ideas that have guided the past three decades of Las Vegas growth." Sarno was a developer, entrepreneur, and degenerate gambler who got started by building motor inns in Atlanta, Palo Alto, and Dallas after WW II -- with loans from the Central States Teamsters Pension Fund. Then, a side trip to Las Vegas changed Sarno and Vegas forever. His design team came up with the concept for Caesars Palace, which was the town’s thematic standard for more than 20 years. A year later, they designed Circus Circus and dreamed up Grandissimo, a 6,000-room hotel that proved decades before its time. Jay Sarno died in 1984 in a suite at Caesars of a heart attack at age 62.

  9) Kirk Kerkorian -- Kirk Kerkorian made his early money in aviation, but his destiny lay in Las Vegas, which he first visited in 1945, shooting craps and speculating in vacant Strip land. In the late ‘60s, he built the Las Vegas International, now the Las Vegas Hilton, at the time the largest hotel in the world. Then he bought MGM Studios, which he used as a theme for his first MGM Grand Hotel-Casino, now Bally’s. Then he built the Reno MGM Grand. Then the current MGM Grand. Then he bought the Mirage corporation. Then he bought the Mandalay Resort corporation. Today, Kerkorian’s MGM Mirage owns Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, New York-New York, Monte Carlo, Bellagio, Mirage, Treasure Island, and Circus Circus, almost the entire west side of the Las Vegas Strip, among many other properties around the country; it's the second largest casino corporation in the world.

  10) Steve Wynn -- He redesigned the Golden Nugget to add a touch of Hollywood to derelict downtown Las Vegas. He spent $650 million on the Mirage and launched what’s arguably the greatest building boom in the history of the world. He threw up Treasure Island almost as an afterthought. He designed and built Bellagio and the Wynn Las Vegas, the two most expensive hotels on Earth, and he’s currently working on Encore and a $3 billion urban village. Steve Wynn is without doubt the greatest casino visionary ever to live.

1854--Carson County created as part of Utah Territory.

1861--Created as Territory of Nevada on March 2

1864--Admitted as State of Nevada October 31; a state holiday since 1939.

STATE FLAG
The New Nevada State Flag; cobalt blue background; in upper left quarter is a five-pointed silver star between two sprays of sagebrush crossed to form a half wreath; across the top of wreath is a golden scroll with the words, in black letters "Battle Born." The name "Nevada" is below the star and above the sprays in golden letters. Design modified June 8, 1991, original design approved on March 21, 1929.

STATE SEAL
Designed in July 1864 and adopted February 24, 1866. A gold seal is embossed with the words " The Great Seal of the State of Nevada " around the outer edge. Within this is a composite picture showing the mining, agriculture, industry and scenery of Nevada, under which is a scroll with the State motto, "All for our Country".

STATE MOTTO - "ALL FOR OUR COUNTRY"
How did it originate?
The motto has always been part of the state seal but there is no documented source of its originality. Nevada entered the Union as a state during the Civil War and just before the presidential election of 1864. The Constitutional Convention met in Carson City on July 4, 1864, just one year after the terrible battle at Gettysburg. The Union needed another state, another supporter of President Lincoln, to prove to the Confederacy that the Union was strong. Patriotism was running high here and those assembled for the Convention felt very loyal to the Union and quite willing to do what they could to support it. Article V, Section 15 of the Nevada Constitution states that there is to be a state seal. In the second legislative session (1866), Assemblyman A. B. Elliot of Storey County introduced Bill 26. It was read and referred to the Committee on State Library. They returned it to the Assembly for another reading. It passed there and went to the Senate. In the Senate, AB26 was referred to the Committee on State Affairs. On February 19, 1866, Senator Lockwood reported that the Committee had AB26 under consideration, had come to a favorable conclusion thereon, and directed their chairman to report the same to the Senate, without amendment, and recommended its passage. On the third reading it passed 12-1. The statutes of 1866 (chapter XLI) gives a complete description of the design. The last sentence reads "In an outer circle, the words, "The Great Seal of the State of Nevada," to be engraved with these words, for the motto of our State, "All for Our Country." Unfortunately, there are no records of the committee proceedings, discussions, nor any legislature's discussion of the seal, to tell us how or why or who came up with "All for our country."

STATE BIRD
Mountain Bluebird

STATE ANIMAL
Desert Bighorn Sheep .

STATE REPTILE
The Desert Tortoise

STATE FLOWER
Sagebrush, adopted March 20, 1917.

STATE TREE -- Two trees share the State tree designation. The Single-Leaf Pion and the Bristlecone Pine

STATE PRECIOUS GEMSTONE -- Among the many gemstones found in Nevada, the Virgin Valley Black Fire Opal is one of the most beautiful. The Virgin Valley in northern Nevada is the only place in North America where the Black Fire Opal is found in any significant quantity.

STATE SONG
"Home Means Nevada" by Mrs. Bertha Raffetto, Reno; adopted February 6, 1933.
 

STATE CAPITAL
Carson City; designated in July 1864; also territorial capital dating back to 1861
 

NEVADA NICKNAMES
Battle-Born State, Sagebrush State, Silver State
 

AREA
110,540 square miles, 485 miles long, 315 miles wide; seventh in size.

	US Census Bureau - People QuickFacts -State of Nevada	Nevada	USA
	Population, 2004 estimate	2,334,771	293,655,404
	Population, percent change, April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2004	16.8%	4.3%
	Population, 2000	1,998,257	281,421,906
	Population, percent change, 1990 to 2000	66.3%	13.1%
	Persons under 5 years old, percent, 2000	7.3%	6.8%
	Persons under 18 years old, percent, 2000	25.6%	25.7%
	Persons 65 years old and over, percent, 2000	11.0%	12.4%
	Female persons, percent, 2000	49.1%	50.9%

	Clark County (Las Vegas Area)	Clark County	Nevada
	Population, 2004 estimate	1,650,671	2,334,771
	Population, percent change, April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2004	20.0%	16.8%
	Population, 2000	1,375,765	1,998,257
	Population, percent change, 1990 to 2000	85.6%	66.3%
	Persons under 5 years old, percent, 2000	7.5%	7.3%
	Persons under 18 years old, percent, 2000	25.6%	25.6%
	Persons 65 years old and over, percent, 2000	10.7%	11.0%
	Female persons, percent, 2000	49.1%	49.1%