The Hacienda opened in June 1956 at a cost of $6 million with 266 rooms. It was one of a chain of low-rise motor inns owned by Warren "Doc" and Judy Bayley. It catered to low rollers and families, mostly from Southern California. Its "Hacienda Holiday" billboards were prominently placed along California highways and a fleet of DC-4 Hacienda airplanes shuttled customers in high style to and from Las Vegas; at its peak, the Hacienda owned and operated more than 30 airplanes, running junkets from a dozen major U.S. cities. It also boasted Las Vegas's first heliport. For a time, a go-kart track circled the place.
According to The Green Felt Jungle,"Warren Bayley was one of the few owners along the Strip not connected with the underworld. The fact that the Hacienda is known as 'Hayseed Heaven' may have discouraged the boys."
Doc Bayley died in 1964. Judy Bayley ran the joint till her own death in 1971. The Bayley Estate sold the Hacienda to Allen Glick of Argent Corp. After Glick got into trouble for his organized-crime connections, the Hacienda was sold in 1977 to Paul Lowden, the hotel's former entertainment director, who owned it till selling out to Circus Circus Enterprises in 1995.
Circus Circus ran it for 18 months before knocking it down on New Year's Day 1997. It immediately started building Mandalay Bay, which now occupies the site.
When it opened, the Hacienda was the farthest-south casino on the Las Vegas Strip by at least a couple of miles. A year later, however, the Tropicana joined it at the south end, though about a half-mile farther north. In those days, the closest major hotel-casino north of the Tropicana was the Flamingo, located north of Flamingo Road.
The Aladdin opened south of Flamingo Road in 1966. Caesars opened, across the Strip from the Flamingo, also in 1966. The Boardwalk arrived in the middle of the block between Flamingo and Tropicana in 1969.
The original MGM Grand (now Bally's) opened north of the Aladdin, on the southeast corner of Flamingo and the Strip, in 1973. The old Marina, now part of MGM Grand, opened across Tropicana Avenue from the Tropicana in 1975. The San Remo opened next to the Tropicana on E. Tropicana Avenue in 1989.
When the Excalibur opened across the Strip from the Tropicana in 1990, it was the first major hotel-casino to open right on the Strip that far south in 33 years. That opened the floodgates to the south Strip. MGM Grand and Luxor debuted in late 1993. The Monte Carlo opened a half-block north of the northwest corner of Tropicana and the Strip in 1996 and New York-New York arrived right at that intersection in 1997. Finally, Mandalay Bay and the Four Seasons debuted in March 1999, 26 months after the Hacienda closed and was imploded and nearly 43 years after it opened.
