Few people would have looked at the arid riverbank that’s now Laughlin, Nev., and foreseen prosperity. Little more than a wide bend in the Colorado River, it was a scorched and inhospitable place. True, many nomadic bands of Indians had managed to eke out a living in what was to become the southern Nevada region known as "South Pointe." But by the mid-19th century, the incursions of white men were pushing the aboriginal people deeper into the desert.
In 1852, Fort Mojave (on the Arizona bank) was a favored port of call for sternwheelers paddling up the Colorado or heading southward en route to to San Francisco round the horn of Baja California. Overland travelers found shelter beneath the fort’s guns and, for a time, an experimental camel-borne system of mail delivery was based there. (Nowadays, it only seems like the mail travels via camel train.)
Settlers spurned the Nevada side of the river, even when the construction of Davis Dam (1942-53) brought a large —- if temporary —- populace to the area. Upon the ashes of the 19th century river port of Hardyville rose Bullhead City, home to thousands of people engaged in creating Lake Mojave. When they left, Bullhead City remained, albeit as what A.D. Hopkins (in The First 100 describes as "a laid-back community of bait shops, bars, and affordable travel-trailer parks."
Even as the Davis Dam workforce was dispersing, South Pointe’s commercial savior was establishing himself in Nevada, having fled here from the frozen north. Born in Owatonna, Minn., in 1931, Don Laughlin clearly wasn’t cut out for Midwestern conformity. While attending junior high in the proverbial one-room schoolhouse, he discovered a "gray market" in slot machines that —- though illegal —- dotted the Minnesota countryside as long as law enforcement turned a blind eye.
Charmed by slot machines since childhood, the 14-year-old entrepreneur bought one by mail, using money he earned trapping muskrat and mink in the woods. Within a year, the teenaged Laughlin had a flourishing slot-and-pinball business going, raking in $26,000 annually … a lot of money in those Depression-plagued days.
Such buccaneering didn’t sit too well with Laughlin’s high school principal, who issued an ultimatum: Give up the machines or get out of school. Since Laughlin was making more money than his principal, it was a no-brainer. He kept at the slot routes until 1952, when a nationwide crackdown on gambling devices spurred him westward. Upon reaching Las Vegas, Laughlin tended bar by day and attended dealers’ school at night. By 1954, he’d made enough to purchase the 101 Club in North Las Vegas.
Over the next decade, Laughlin realized the limitation of being a small fish in the big Las Vegas pond. He was never going to capture a major piece of the casino action. Where better to go, he reasoned, than somewhere on the border? There, at least 90% of the action would be from people coming expressly to gamble.
Laughlin, an avid amateur pilot, was making an aerial reconnaissance of the South Pointe area and spotted a promising (and near-empty) stretch of land on the river opposite Bullhead City. Superficially, the site didn’t offer much save abundant water and close proximity to the Arizona and California borders, but that was plenty.
In 1964, the wheeler-dealer parlayed $165,000 from the sale of the 101 Club into the purchase of the Riverside Bait Shop, a defunct eight-room motel, and 6.5 acres of land. By 1966, the old motel and diner reopened as the first incarnation of the Riverside Casino. Starting with four motel rooms (Laughlin’s family lived in the other four), two table games, 12 slots, and a 98-cent buffet, Laughlin built up a business that has grown into the 1,400-room Don Laughlin’s Riverside Resort Hotel & Casino.
His success drew competition. In 1968, the Bobcat Club opened, followed by the Monte Carlo in 1971. In 1972, Oddie Lopp bought and remade the Bobcat Club as the Nevada Club (forerunner of the present Golden Nugget). He emulated Laughlin by offering ferryboat service to the Arizona side of the river. During the go-go Eighties, market dynamics changed. Small operators were elbowed out by large corporations. Circus Circus snapped up the Edgewater in 1983 and proceeded to build its riverboat-themed Colorado Belle. Steve Wynn arrived in 1988, the same year that Harrah’s Entertainment snatched up the town’s only stretch of beach sand.
This gaggle of shoreline casino-hotels was baptized "Laughlin." In 1968, legend has it, the Postal Service wanted to bring mail delivery closer than Searchlight. A postal inspector asked Don Laughlin for possible names for his burg. The latter offered "Riverside" and "Casino," but the inspector—supposedly named O’Neill—countered with the "good Irish name" of Laughlin.
The prosperity of the Clinton Administration seemed to pass Laughlin by. The town saw visitor counts wane from 4.75 million in 1993 to 4.29 in 1998. Revenues scarcely budged during that period, rising from $482 million to $491 million, hardly enough to keep pace with inflation. The ascent of the "casino-based destination resort" in Las Vegas, as well as the tribal-casino movement in California and Arizona, cut into the town’s demographics.
By the end of 2008, visitation to Laughlin fell below 2.9 million for the year, with hotel occupancy at 69%, although casino revenue had grown to $571 million. The town’s struggles, however, have not been nearly as great as those of Mesquite and Primm. As Barbara and Myhrick Land wrote in A Short History of Las Vegas, "Laughlin remains the biggest of the satellites [and] the only one started from scratch."
