Question of the Day - 12 August 2008

Sometimes a question comes along that stumps the best minds in Las Vegas. This is one such instance.

Several historians were foxed by this query, which involves a small motel across the Strip from Mandalay Bay –- one of the few still standing. Most of the others, including the Glass Pool Inn (see QoD 2/23/08) and the Klondike (3/21/06), were demolished in anticipation of various hotel projects that failed to materialize.

One possible reason for the Diamond Inn’s obscurity is that, in terms of the early history of the Strip, anything that far south of Flamingo Road was akin to the farthest end of the Earth.

Or, as former KLAS-TV news director (and part-time Vegas historian) Bob Stoldal points out, it’s difficult to pin down the origin of the motel, because nothing of that name appears in the 1940-46 phone directories and its address, 4605 S. Las Vegas Boulevard, simply didn’t exist. The phone books simply listed those businesses past what's now Sahara as on the "L.A. Highway," Stoldal writes us.

The newsman also consulted his large collection of Las Vegas postcards, which date back to the early 1930s. Stoldal says he’s "still working on what was the first 'motel' in Las Vegas. At that point most of the operations were north of what is now the Mirage. Even then it was quite a ways 'out of town.' Still, even in those days, somebody was always trying to be the first to get the visitors from Los Angeles."

If it was a motel back then, Stoldal theorizes, it must have been very small indeed never to have issued postcards, which he considers unlikely, seeing as postcards were quite cheap to produce back then. However, he did locate a postcard, circa1957, advertising the Diamond Inn Motel in its previous incarnation as the Desert Isle Motel. It describes the Desert Isle as "50 ultra-modern units, some kitchens and suites, cooled by refrigeration, heated swimming pool and separate kiddy pool and baby pool, baby sitters, TVs, weddings arranged, show reservations, and sensible room rates," according to Stoldal, who wryly adds, "Sounds like the place to stay."

Dennis McBride, curator of history and collections at the Las Vegas branch of the Nevada State Museum, enlarges upon Stoldal’s findings: "In 1940, so far as I'm aware, there was nothing much that was south of Charleston, and certainly nothing as far out as what became Flamingo Road. There were a few roadhouses scattered out there: the Red Rooster stood about where the Mirage is today, while the Pair-a-Dice Club, which became the 91 Club, was incorporated into the Hotel Last Frontier in 1942 as the 21 Club. Both are long gone.

"The El Rancho Vegas was built on the corner of what's now the Strip and Sahara Avenue, and it was way out in the boonies in 1941. Before World War II, Las Vegas motels were concentrated along Fifth Street [the Strip] near Charleston Boulevard, on lower Fremont Street, and on a few side streets north and south of Fremont."

Several other local historians threw their hands in the air, while our query to the Preservation Association of Clark County went unanswered.

Rescue came in the form of one of our readers, Bruce Rodriguez, who produced a FastWeb property profile showing that something was constructed at 4605 S. Las Vegas Boulevard in 1940. The county’s Development Services Records division confirmed this finding, adding that it had no permits on record for that address prior to 1980, when the Diamond Inn was still the Desert Isle Motel (and had just sustained some fire damage –- hence the building permit).

Mr. Rodriguez also spent some time at UNLV’s Special Collections department and was able to narrow down the origin of the Desert Isle Motel to the early 1950s. He then put his head together with photo-collector Allen Sandquist. According to them, the most likely scenario is that a residence built in 1940 was never demolished, but incorporated into the motel as it was built. This would keep intact the 1940 construction date. As proof, they proferred a satellite photo.

"You can see … a house built into the motel, the home certainly looks old enough to be built in 1940. I went down to the Diamond Inn with my kids last week," Rodriguez wrote, "and took some shots of the house. It is completely walled off in the front and boarded up in the back. It looks like it is being utilized as a storage area for old mattresses and other junk at the moment and is accessible through a side door by the staircase that leads to the 2nd floor of motel rooms on the east side."

Rodriguez’s scouting trip, plus the title record, both appear to support the 1940 date, which would make part of the Diamond Inn Motel (née Desert Isles) the Strip’s oldest standing structure.

But is it the oldest motel? Until the date when a little homestead on the L.A. Highway blossomed into the Desert Isles Motel can be definitively established, bragging rights probably go to a neighbor: the former Terrace Motel, now the Olympus Inn, home to psychic readings.

Hmmmmm … psychics, you say? Maybe those soothsayers can clear up this mystery once and for all.