The 200-room Showboat opened in 1954 out on Boulder Highway and was built for $2 million. It was an anomaly at the time: a Mississippi riverboat, complete with a paddlewheel and smokestacks -- one of the earliest heavily themed casinos in Las Vegas. The day before the grand opening, an enormous storm dumped torrential rains, which almost washed the Showboat away. But the 'Boat floated along in the treacherous Las Vegas current for decades, steering around snags, pausing in port for upgrades, and rarely foundering.
In 1959, 24 bowling lanes were added to the casino, which sponsored tournaments, attracting low rollers from around the country. Around that time, the 'Boat launched a long-running 49-cent breakfast special, which brought the locals running. The ‘Boat expanded in 1963, got a facelift in 1968, and added a nine-story 250-room tower in 1973, which it finished at 19 stories and 500 rooms in 1976.
The bowling alley became the largest in the country in the 1980s with 106 lanes, hosting televised professional matches and amateur events. The big bingo parlor was once the finest in town.
Harrah's Entertainment bought the Showboat in 1998 and ran it for a couple of years before selling it to a group led by casino operator Mike Villamor. The new owners renamed it the Castaways, making some cosmetic improvements to give the property a South Pacific look. But the Castaways remained stranded on a Las Vegas desert island, not quite downtown and not quite on the growing Boulder Strip, and slowly went out of business.
In 2003, $50 million in debt, the Castaways declared bankruptcy, then closed for good in January 2004.
Station Casinos bought the 26-acre site in late 2004 for $33.7 million and imploded the tower on January 12, 2006.
The following October, Station announced plans to redevelop the property into a $90 million 20,000-square-foot phase-one "restaurant-casino" project called Castaways Station. The small casino was supposed to sport a Spanish theme and, of course, to have expansion potential. But nothing has happened with the property in the past year.
However, something will be happening at the site soon. In order to protect the Castaways' grandfather zoning clause, which allows Station to build a big casino without the required hotel rooms, the company "must have active gambling at least one day every two years." The Gaming Control Board recently approved Station's application to operate a small trailer on the site with 16 slot machines for eight hours. No date has been announced for this unusual gambling experience, and Las Vegas city officials also have to approve the application.
But the name of the place would have to be Trailer Station.
