Today, we conclude the mini-bio of a local entrepreneur, picking up where we left off with departing teaser: "From four motel rooms, Don Laughlin builds a one-man empire."
Las Vegas casinos spurned recreational vehicles, figuring that RV travelers were tightwads. But Don Laughlin knew that it cost a tenth of as much to build an RV space as a hotel room. Besides, "Anybody who owns an RV is somebody with money. We’ve found RV customers spend just as much money as people who stay in our rooms," he said in a 1988 interview. He was also among the first to have an on-site child-care facility (which turned a profit) and sponsored afternoon-tea dances, a genteel touch not associated with casinos.
By 1968, when the town had grown big enough to justify a post office, it was renamed Laughlin. Its eponymous city father would go on to build an airport and a gas station, as well as amass vast tracts of land, a bank, movie theaters, a fleet of water taxis, a bus line, a 34-lane bowling alley, a granary, hay farm, and a cattle ranch, making himself indispensable to the local economy.
("It’s kind of a nuisance to have the town named after me," Don Laughlin told the Los Angeles Times. "People sometimes get the opinion that we’ve got a lot of political clout and a lot of ego, and that’s not the case at all.")
Between 1972 and 1975, 100 hotel rooms were added to the Riverside. A 253-room tower followed in 1983, then a 307-room tower in 1986. In 1994, just before the Laughlin economy began to stagnate, Don Laughlin built yet another tower, bringing his room inventory to 1,404. Then the explosion of tribal gambling in Arizona and California sent Laughlin’s economy into a four-year swoon, although it battled back.
In 1987, Don Laughlin built a bridge between Arizona and Nevada, then donated it to the two states, another shrewd move. ("It took four and a half years to get the bridge approved by, I think, 38 different agencies," he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. "Only took us four months to build it.") And what was once a bait shop had become the seedling of Don Laughlin’s Riverside Resort Hotel & Casino – next to the bridge.
Where Laughlin went, other casino operators followed, including Steve Wynn, Hilton Hotels, Boyd Gaming, Circus Circus, and Harrah’s Entertainment. Laughlin the town flourished, and so did neighboring Bullhead City, Arizona, whose population more than doubled as the casinos moved south. Writer Cary Ordway summarized the city’s appeal as being "thought of by many visitors as the Old Las Vegas – the one that was more focused on providing cheap beds and cheap eats, but plenty of opportunities to gamble." One regular patron summed up Laughlin’s appeal thusly, "I like it there because it’s low-key, everything is cheaper, and the people are friendlier."
Laughlin the casino baron built a reputation for keeping operations sharp, not only by prowling his casino floor in the predawn hours, but by monitoring the prices at his gas station through a telescope.
His personal touch can also be felt in eccentricities like the "Loser’s Wall," enshrining some of the casino’s biggest … well, losers. There’s also a "Watch Wall," covered with wristwatches of myriad makes and models. (Don Laughlin is also a former watchmaker.) There’s a classic-car museum, too. Don Laughlin, it would seem, is truly the casino operator who offers something for everyone.
