The Thunderbird Hotel and Casino opened in 1948. Named for a mythological Navajo creature, it was built by Marion Hicks, a local contractor who also built the El Cortez downtown earlier that decade, and Clifford Jones, who was, at the time, Nevada's 35-year-old lieutenant governor. It was the fourth casino to open on the incipient Las Vegas Strip, after the El Rancho Vegas (1940), the Last Frontier (1941) and the Flamingo (1946). It was located a long block south of what was then known as San Francisco (now Sahara) Avenue.
By some accounts, the Thunderbird was the original locals joint, catering to Las Vegans with quality inexpensive food and an informality unknown at the other three resorts, where a tacit dress code was in force. It also had a bowling alley, the only one the Strip has ever had. And its Joe's Oyster Bar was renowned far and wide as the first, and perhaps the best, oyster bar ever to serve a Las Vegas casino. In addition, since Lt. Governor Jones had the juice, the Thunderbird also turned into a hangout for many prominent state politicians.
The Thunderbird's heyday lasted till the mid-1950s, when there were 10 major resorts on the Strip. In 1955, the Nevada Tax Commission (the forerunner of the state Gaming Control Board and Gaming Commission) exercised its authority on the Thunderbird, revoking its gambling license after a sting operation conducted by local newspapermen uncovered a loan to the hotel by Jake Lansky, Meyer Lansky's brother (read about it in The Green Felt Jungle). The courts later restored the Thunderbird's license, but its aura was fading.
The casino stumbled along for the next nine years till it was sold to Del Webb, a partner in the Sahara, which had opened a block north of the Thunderbird in 1952. Webb bought it for $10 million and ran it till 1972, when he sold it to Caesars World for $13 million. It didn't take long for the Caesars bosses to realize they didn't want the old white elephant, so they essentially had Parry Thomas, the banker who held the $9 million mortgage on the property, repossess it. It took a few years, but Thomas finally sold it to Major Riddle, partner in the Dunes; Riddle changed its name to the Silverbird. The Silverbird's poker room was known for being the meanest shark tank in town.
A few years later in 1981, Riddle unloaded it to Ed Torres, a longtime casino manager who also, at the time, owned the Aladdin in a partnership with Wayne Newton. Torres renamed it the El Rancho, after the Strip's original hotel-casino, which was located across the street until it burned to the ground in 1960 and was never rebuilt. Ever since, people have been confusing the El Rancho Vegas with the El Rancho. Torres managed, though just barely, to keep the El Rancho alive; it limped along for ten years as Torres tried to sell it for as little as $25 million, but found no takers. It died in 1992 at the young age of 44.
It then stood for many years, dark and shuttered, a brooding hulk. Even vacant, the property was ill-fated. A number of developers and dreamers announced plans for the derelict building, most notable of which was Countryland USA; this group even went so far as to put a fence around the property and erect a big sign with the new name. Nothing happened. Then a pipe dream called Starship Orion was announced. Nothing happened. Then a London-themed resort was announced. Nothing happened.
Finally, Turnberry Associates picked up the 21-acre property for roughly $45 million in 1999, a bargain $2.14 million an acre. Nothing more than an eyesore in the view west from Turnberry's upscale high-rise condos behind it, the El Rancho was imploded on September 30, 2000.
In May 2005, Turnberry announced that it would develop a $1.5 billion 4,000-room Fontainebleau Hotel-Casino, modeled on Miami Beach's famous Fontainebleau Hotel. Construction was supposed to have begun by the end of 2005. Nothing happened.
