"Old Vegas," we learned thanks to this question, was a short-lived amusement park located on 126 acres of land in Henderson at 2440 South Boulder Highway that opened in 1978 and operated for just eight years. Built at a cost of $7.2 million, the attraction debuted under the name Westworld, after Houston-based Westworld Inc. which owned this property and another called Old Tuscon in Arizona. The name of the Henderson park was changed shortly prior to its opening to match that of its sister attraction -- click here to see a brochure for Old Vegas promising "a passport to the past," plus an array of photographs depicting the theme park and its signage at various stages during its short history.
A Hollywood-styled reconstruction of an Old West town, Old Vegas comprised various old movie sets from popular westerns and featured staged saloon brawls and gun fights, plus several rides including a five-carriage passenger train. The latter operated on approximately one mile of track that formed a loop into the desert, toward the mountains -- you can see it via the above link, where there's a plan of the whole site and its various attractions. These included a stagecoach, a "haunted" miner's shack, a medicine show wagon, Western Union's first telegraph office, and a fort -- yes, a fort! -- that housed gift shops selling western-style trinkets, homemade fudge, and hot dogs and a photo booth where you could have your picture snapped in "old time Western duds."
There was also the small Hondo Casino, whose chips confusingly retained the original West World name (although as two words), presumably as they'd already been made prior to opening and it was deemed too costly to replace them. In addition, the site housed two buildings that were salvaged from the fire that destroyed much of historic El Rancho Vegas Hotel. These were somehow moved out to the site to complement the western style of the theme park, which employed around 100 people.
By the mid-'80s, however, the parent company had run into financial difficulties and having operated under bankruptcy protection for a year, in 1986 Old Vegas was forced to close. In 1987 the land was purchased by Focus 2000, a private company held by Tony Marnell, chairman of MarCor Resorts, Inc. which built the Rio. Nothing was done with the locationally challenged site until 1997, when the dilapidated and decaying buildings were finally demolished and the land was once again put on the market, for $30 million.
At that time the Boulder Highway corridor through Henderson was experiencing something of a gaming boom, with casinos including Boulder Station, Sam's Town, and Jokers Wild all having come online, and there was talk of redeveloping the Old Vegas theme park into to a casino resort, but instead it wound up being converted to residential use and is now home to one of Henderson's 27 mater-planned communities that still bears the name Old Vegas.
What became of the 0-6-4 steam locomotive and the five coaches that made up the Old Vegas passenger trains we're not sure, but they were put up for sale with an asking price of $165,000 and were still fully operational, so hopefully they found a new home somewhere.
