If we're talking about the original Castaways (as opposed to the Showboat, at Fremont Street and Boulder Highway, which was later renamed Castaways), the latter two are one and the same place. In 1931, the Red Rooster nightclub opened on what was then Highway 91 and is now the Las Vegas Strip, south of Spring Mountain Road. In the Forties, it added a motor court, the San Souci. When the Red Rooster was razed in favor of a hotel-casino, the new resort inherited the San Souci name and opened in 1957. However, it entered bankruptcy within a year and operated until 1963 as a non-gambling property.
That year it was purchased by Ike Larue, who reopened the casino and rechristened the property the Castaways. A mermaid tank and a Tiki-festooned showroom were part of the new motif. The resort was better known for its Bottoms Up girlie show than for its casino, which went in and out of business. (Hard to believe, but true.) The Castaways was purchased in 1969 by Howard Hughes, whose company owned it until 1987. That's when it was sold to a fresh-faced entrepreneur named Steve Wynn. He demolished the Castaways and replaced it with another vaguely tropical-themed casino, The Mirage. It would change the Strip forever.
As for the Moulin Rouge (1955), bits and pieces of the property still remain. But a pair of fires, one in 2003 and the other earlier this year, destroyed much of it. Still more of the old gal was leveled when the Las Vegas fire department OK'd partial demolition of the property while the most recent blaze was still smoldering – thwarting any potential arson investigation.
To see the remnants of the Rouge, you have to go well off the Strip. It's actually slightly northwest of downtown, just off the I-15/515 interchange (known locally as the "Spaghetti Bowl") in the 800 block of Bonanza Road. The casino's mansard-roofed spire makes an easy point of navigation. There's not much to see, as the Moulin Rouge is on a rundown stretch of street, its principal neighbors being a construction equipment-rental yard and the compound that houses the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
(Special thanks to Dr. David G. Schwartz of the University of Nevada-Las Vegas for his invaluable assistance with this QoD.)
