Howard Hughes’s attraction to Las Vegas dated back to the early 1950s, when he liked to fly in, take over floors of hotel-casinos, shoot craps at all hours, and try to buy showgirls for himself and his friends.
In 1965, he sold his airline, Trans World, for nearly a half-billion dollars, cash. Rather than hand over a huge chunk to Uncle Sugar, he needed to invest most of the proceeds, and he apparently decided to see how much it might cost to acquire the entire city of Las Vegas.
He arrived in November 1966 -- reportedly at midnight, incognito, from an ambulance and through a back door of the Desert Inn, trailing a truckload of Kleenex and a retinue of Mormon advisors. He set up shop on the top floor of the DI, the toniest resort-casino in town at that time. By mid-December, however, the DI owners wanted their ninth-floor suites back, in order to accommodate high rollers heading in for Christmas. But Hughes and his entourage had grown so comfortable (armed guards stationed at the entrances, an air-purifying system working round the clock, blackout draperies on all the windows, and a special internal phone system) that he wasn’t in the mood to be evicted. So in March 1967, he bought the whole joint for $13.2 million.
Hughes remained exactly where he was, barely seeing the light of day, for the next three years. But he moved his cash in a big way, embarking on the most robust buying spree Nevada had ever seen. When the dust settled, he owned the Desert Inn, Sands, Castaways (all defunct) and Frontier, and was ready to buy the Stardust when antitrust laws got in the way. That sale failed but he did manage to purchase the Silver Slipper (defunct), the Landmark (defunct), big vacant parcels of land on the Strip and around the city, a TV station, a small local airline, North Las Vegas Airport, casinos in Reno (all defunct), and mining property throughout Nevada.
In addition, during this time he unveiled, in a personal statement that broke 15 years of official silence, the master plan for his city: He intended to turn Las Vegas into a space-age airport that would accommodate the giant supersonic jets (SSTs) that Hughes foresaw in the future.
In all, Howard Hughes dropped $300 million between March 1967 and April 1970.
Although Hughes ultimately contributed nothing to the Las Vegas skyline or industrial sector, the presence alone of the billionaire master financier and visionary added an enormous degree of long-needed legitimacy to Las Vegas, and his investments stimulated an unprecedented boom. The Aladdin (defunct), Caesars Palace, Four Queens, Circus Circus, Landmark and the International (now Las Vegas Hilton), among other smaller casinos, all opened while Hughes was holed up on the ninth floor of the Desert Inn.
In addition, Hughes demanded, and received, special dispensation from the state casino regulators. Prior to his whirlwind of cash, all casino owners, no matter how small their percentage of ownership, were required to appear in person before the Gaming Control Board. Hughes, being Hughes, simply refused -- and got away with it. This paved the way for the Nevada Corporate Gaming Acts of 1967 and 1969, which allowed, for the first time in Nevada history, publicly traded corporations to acquire gambling licenses without the need for every stockholder to be individually licensed. MGM, Hilton, Holiday Inn, and others quickly entered the industry.
In the final analysis, the Hughes era was a rousing success for everyone but Hughes himself. In 1970, he divorced his first and only wife, Jean Peters. He also lost a $150 million lawsuit to TWA. And he fled Las Vegas the way he came -- on a stretcher.
