Number 1 Main Street is the ground zero for the founding of Las Vegas; it also divides north, south, east, and west in the city’s street-numbering system. This was the site of the 1905 railroad auction where modern Las Vegas was born. Here, at the head of Fremont Street, stood the Spanish-style train depot for the Central, then Union, Pacific Railroad for more than 60 years, surrounded by various metal and welding shops, engine-repair buildings, and a roundhouse on 63 acres of prime real estate owned by the railroad.
In 1970, longtime downtown casino operators Sam Boyd and Jackie Gaughan, along with then-Senator Howard Cannon, partnered in building a $20 million 500-room hotel at 1 Main Street, appropriately calling it the Union Plaza. The hotel opened at the stroke of midnight July 2, 1971. The grand-opening party is remembered to this day as the biggest champagne bash, up to that time, in Las Vegas history; more than 10,000 visitors showed up to see the new joint its first day in operation.
From day one, Las Vegas’ Amtrak station was at the back of the Union Plaza, connected to the hotel. It was the only train station in the United States located in a casino, till Amtrak discontinued its Desert Wind train route in 1997.
The Union Plaza opened the first race and sports book in a Las Vegas casino in 1975, less than a year after Nevada passed a law allowing it. Jackie Gaughan at the Plaza is widely credited as pioneering race and sports betting at casinos (along with Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal at the Stardust).
A 26-story 526-room tower was added in 1983, giving the Union Plaza the 1,035 or so rooms it still has today.
In 1990 Jackie Gaughan bought out his partners and changed the name of the hotel-casino to Jackie Gaughan’s Plaza.
Jackie Gaughan’s Plaza made a name for itself in a number of ways. Its Center Stage Restaurant, in a second-floor glassed-in dome in the front of the building, was a great bargain-gourmet steakhouse with one of the best views in town. The film Back to the Future Part II used the Plaza as a model for its dystopian Biff’s Casino. The 1994 movie version of The Stand, Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic horror fantasy, used the Plaza the Union Plaza played a key role as the headquarters of Randal Flagg, a recurring villain in King’s fiction. In the 1995 movie Casino, Sharon Stone and Robert De Niro argue over missing money in the Center Stage. In the 2000 movie Pay It Forward, a scene with Kevin Spacey was also filmed in the Center Stage. In the 2001 movie The Mexican, the two main characters, Samantha and Winston, stay at the Plaza; Frank is killed by being thrown from one of its balconies. (The Center Stage Restaurant is now a second version of the locally famed Firefly Tapas Kitchen and Lounge.)
In 2004, Gaughan sold the Plaza, along with three other downtown casinos, to Barrick Gaming for $82 million. Barrick announced huge plans to redevelop the aging Plaza, but little more than a year later, Barrick ceded control of the Plaza to majority owner Tamares Group, which owns it still.
Tamares lost a lawsuit protecting its own use of the name Plaza name against the Elad Group, which planned to build a Plaza, based on the famous old Manhattan hotel, on the site of the old Frontier Casino. (Those plans have fallen through.)
Mayor Oscar Goodman has stated publicly that he looks forward to the day when the Plaza is imploded, hoping to replace the casino with some new architecture providing a gateway to Union Park, the big urban development of the 63 acres once owned by the railroad. Every so often, rumors surface that its days are numbered, but so far, the Plaza continues to anchor downtown Las Vegas.
