Question of the Day - 03 January 2023

The QoD referenced in the questions was about why Spring Mountain Road, Sands Avenue, and Twain Street are all names for the same short thoroughfare. We mentioned that Hoot Gibson's D-4-C Ranch was in the Spring Mountain Road neighborhood, connected by a feeder avenue from the Strip. 

So who was Hoot Gibson? 

Edmund "Hoot" Gibson was a superstar of western movies, mostly during the silent era; the only more popular western leading man was Tom Mix.

Gibson grew up in Nebraska in the early 1900s and was, by all accounts, "horse crazy": he could ride like the dickens. His family moved to southern California when he was only seven, but his love of horses didn't fade and he was a bronc buster for a Wild West show when he started appearing on screen as a stuntman at the age of 18. He made the transition from backup to star and went on to leading-man status in silent westerns for the next 10 years, then transitioned again to talkies.

At the peak of his fame, he was making $15,000 a week, the equivalent of around $250,000 today. He wasn't particularly careful with his money, spending lavishly on fast cars and motorcycles, airplanes, the high life -- along with divorces and lawsuits over his contracts with movie studios. 

But the Depression caused the studios to cut back on westerns and Hoot found himself out of a job at age 40. He kicked around Hollywood through the '30s, but finally had to return to Wild West shows to make ends meet. He did make more movies on and off, but also got involved in a number of dubious investment ventures.

One of them was the large piece of Las Vegas real estate that, at the time, was on the outskirts of Las Vegas, but is now occupied by Chinatown. He and partners bought the land in 1946 and built an airfield, casino, restaurant, and bungalows; they also offered dude-ranch activities for guests, most of whom were establishing the six-week residency to take advantage of Nevada's quickie divorces. That explains the name: "D-4-C." Hoot himself was married four times and divorced three.

The D-4-C had a couple of good years, but then flopped and the ranch was sold in 1950. 

Edging closer and closer to destitution, Hoot worked for a time as a greeter for Vegas casinos and picked up odd jobs here and there, but poverty, age, and failing health finally caught up with him and he died in 1962 at age 70 from cancer. 

Now, the other Hoot Gibson mentioned in the second question, the TWA pilot, was a different character entirely.

Harvey "Hoot" Gibson gained fame by piloting TWA 841, a flight from New York to Minneapolis, in 1979. Over Michigan, his Boeing 727 aircraft went into an uncontrolled dive, dropping 35,000 feet before Gibson and his co-pilot finally regained control, leveled out the plane at 5,000 feet, and made an emergency landing in Detroit. There were no fatalities and only eight passengers claimed minor injuries due to the force of the nosedive. As far as we know, he had nothing to do with Las Vegas.