Question of the Day - 28 February 2023

Pay up, buster.

You're right that the Golden Gate occupies the first hotel building to be erected in the incipient town of Las Vegas in 1905. It was first known as the Hotel Nevada, then the Sal Sagev, and finally the Golden Gate, starting in 1955.

But exactly 100 years before the Sal Sagev became the Golden Gate, in June 1855, 30 Latter-day Saints made the 35-day trek to Las Vegas Valley from Salt Lake City to establish the first permanent settlement in southern Nevada. They built something of a "fort" to live in, thus becoming the first non-Native residents of Las Vegas Valley.

They didn't really need protection against the Paiute; the fort was more to keep their livestock in than the indigenous population out. The Mormons abandoned the fort and their Las Vegas mission in 1858. But the fort lived on. It was incorporated into the original Las Vegas Ranch in the late 19th century before being bought by the town-founding railroad in 1904.

The railroad leased the fort to various tenants in the early 20th century, including the Bureau of Reclamation, which used it for Hoover Dam construction purposes, before selling it to the Elks in the mid-1950s.

In 1962, the Elks demolished the fort, all except for a small adobe shed, which the Elks preserved for posterity. The remnant was bought by the city in 1971. A number of preservation efforts since then have kept what's now known as the "Old Mormon Fort" from going the way of most Las Vegas history. It became a 2.8-acre state historic park in 1990.

Today, the Old Mormon Fort is the oldest original building in Las Vegas -- at the exact spot where Las Vegas began and in the same building, too.

In 2005, we celebrated the sesquicentennial (150th anniversary) of the Old Mormon Fort. In honor of its longevity, the state of Nevada spent $1.9 million building a 4,000-square-foot visitor center, capping a 15-year $4.5 million restoration-and-preservation project for the park.

The Fort is located at 500 E. Washington Ave. in the northwest corner of the Cashman Field parking lot, about a mile north of downtown on Las Vegas Blvd. North.