Question of the Day - 06 September 2021

Yes, he's still on the right side of the grass. He's such a legendary figure hereabouts that if he died, it would be front-page news. 

He is, however, getting up there in years. He celebrated his 90th birthday this past May 4.

When Laughlin migrated to Las Vegas in the 1950s from his home state of Minnesota, he worked in a few casinos, but it didn't take long for the entrepreneurship that began in his teens, when he started supplying hunting lodges with slot machines, to resurface. First, he bought a beer-and-wine bar at 412 W. Bonanza Road, just north of downtown on the border of Westside. He installed some slots and, though Las Vegas was stringently segregated at the time, Bonanza was an "open" street, so black and white patrons mingled at the bar. 

He sold that establishment for $10,000, which he used to buy the 101 Club. We could find nothing about its location, except that it was "on the Salt Lake Highway" in North Las Vegas.

So we queried our friend Jeff at VintageLasVegas.com and we weren't surprised that he knew the exact address. He tells us that in 1955, the 101 Club was at 2551 N. Main Street. The street name was changed in 1959 to Las Vegas Boulevard North.

That same year, Laughlin bought land across the street from the existing club and opened a brand new 101 Club on January 1, 1960, at 2540 Las Vegas Blvd. North, a couple of blocks north of E. Carey Avenue. With a gaming license and the only blackjack table in that part of town, plus plenty of parking and a popular new restaurant, business tripled overnight. Four years later, he sold the 101 for $165,000. It later morphed into the Opera House Casino, which was demolished in the 2010s. 

Laughlin used the proceeds from the sale to buy a motel and bait shack across the Colorado River from Bullhead City, Arizona. The rest of his story is well known, which you can read in the second part of a two-part QoD on the Don of Laughlin we posted in November 2013.  

By the way, Jeff recently posted a photo on VintageLasVegas that gives some little-known information about the original Vegas Vickie, who was, it turns out, an actual person. It was certainly news to us. Check it out, including a great photo, here.