Question of the Day - 25 February 2020

The Flamingo Capri was a large 180-room motel that opened in 1959. It was located right next door to (north of) the Flamingo, in a space that's now occupied mostly by the Linq. The Capri part of the name was after one of the two owners, Bill Capri (the Flamingo Goldberg, after the other owner, George, probably didn't strike the partners as having the same cachet). Bill Capri was an employee of the Flamingo next door and apparently received permission to use the name, along with the room-service waitstaff and a replica of the Flamingo's champagne tower (as you can see in the postcard below).

Curiously, the Flamingo Capri billed itself as featuring a "Venetian canal," though that was a poor disguise for the drainage ditch that ran next to it (and still does, though the flood waters have been rerouted into tunnels under the Strip).   

Ralph Engelstad bought the motel in 1971, then added a casino a year later. Over the next four years, he removed a number of motel rooms and built new ones, then added a 350-room tower in 1977. By 1979, what was left of the Flamingo Capri had been completely replaced by the Imperial Palace. 

Harrah's Entertainment bought the IP in 2005, renaming it the Quad in 2012. Only a couple of years later, they (now Caesars Entertainment) re-renamed it the Linq.

Thanks to friend of QoD Don for supplying the postcards below. He comes up with some great old Las Vegas images. He also submitted the following description with the postcard. 

"The top images are the front and back. Bottom left, the water I believe is the drainage ditch that was between the two Flamingos. The black and white is a live souvenir photo. When you walked in the front, they had a 21 table right inside and they let you be the dealer and take your photo. Like downtown, you had to come back in a couple of hours or so. The backdrop was a large picture they had on the wall. Kind of cheap, but what the heck; it was free."