Las Vegas, 1950s
I've had a small number of scans of vintage Las Vegas slides in a folder for a long time. Years. I think it's about high time to use them!
The first three feature photos from "Last Frontier Village", also known as Hotel Last Frontier, which opened on October 30th, 1942 as the second resort on the Las Vegas Strip. The western-themed property included 105 rooms, as well as the Little Church of the West. A new owner (William J. Moore) added a western village in 1948. The village consisted of authentic Old West buildings from a collector and would also feature the newly built Silver Slipper casino, added in 1950. Below, a mother and son pose with a genuine old train, which I assume was a static exhibit.
I don't really think of rusty jalopies as something you'd see in an "old west" setting, but I've managed to keep my cool, somehow! I'll bet that in the 1950s, and "antique" like the one below could be had for a song.
Here, mom poses with two disreputable cowpokes, they managed to not spit or cuss for the entire time she was there - maybe they're not so bad after all! This got me to wondering if the tableau of Whiskey Bill and Handsome Brady (at Knott's Berry Farm) was the first example of this kind of "photo op", or if it was a more common thing back then?
This next one is from a different batch; it was a bit of a mystery to me, but we can see "Free Ride to the Silver Slipper" on the cable car (possibly a repurposed San Francisco cable car?) - and as we just read, the Silver Slipper was part of Last Frontier Village. It's hard to be certain, but I assume that the cable car was perhaps attached to some sort of motorized conveyance.
10 comments:
Major-
I assume the partial image of the sign on the Silver Slipper Gambling Hall showing the name "Buddy Baer", refers to the younger brother of world heavyweight champion Max Baer, and the uncle to Max Baer, Jr., who played Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies.
Thanks, Major.
[JB switches from his usual elitist verbage to that of an old west coot.]
Dangnabit! This here picher is a might blurry! Thet mama an' her boy look like folks do after I done drunk a bottle or two! Oh well. Life ain't always whut ya want it to be, I always say.
Thet thar rusty jalopy is a goin' nowhere real fast! Bein' as it's a sittin' up on them wood blocks an' all. Purty picher though!
Them two gents a sittin' on that there bench look like me! What I'm a wonderin' is... how'd them two skallywags rope a purty young thang like her?
[JB switches back to his usual elitist verbage.]
The lady in the cable car reminds me of Julia Child: Her face, the way she's dressed, and her pose. Bon appétit! (I copied and pasted that ;-))
Thank ya kindly, Major.
@ JB-
That woman does bear a resemblance to Miss. Julia not only from her dress and pose, but also her size - this woman appears tall and Julia Child clocked-in at 6'-2".
(For future reference when switching writing modes, the word you're looking for is spelled verbiage and, correctly pronounced with the "i"). See... the more you know-!
In that first image, Mom is giving me Maya Rudolph vibes.
And after viewing that last image, I am now craving some Rice-A-Roni.....even though I've never tried Rice-A-Roni. I think I've heard that it was Julia Child's favorite food. And Martha Stewart's, too.
Thanks for the fun Vegas pics, Major!
Nanook, Well golllleeee! I done never knew there was such a thang!
The train is obviously a static display. You can tell by the way the kid’s hair is standing on end.
That looks a bit small to be a genuine San Francisco cable car. The theming is still a nice touch.
Thanks, Major!
Those train cars have definitely been in the desert for a while, they need paint.
Major, while we don’t think of cars in the context of the classic Wild West, the progress of technology was uneven for years, and motor vehicles existed beside horses and wagons for many years in the countryside. My Dad lived in Colorado in the 1920’s and they farmed with horses and went to market with a buckboard type wagon. No electricity either, just kerosene lanterns. I like the rig in the photo, probably a real speedster doing up to 30 mph.
That cowboy figure looks uncomfortable next to the pretty lady, he has a bad case of side-eye.
Chuck, I agree, that is not a San Francisco cable car, it’s too small and the details aren’t right. Since cable cars had no motors (relying on the cable for traction), this one is probably pulled by a little replica train engine parked out of frame or it’s possible that it had an engine built in. It is parked in front of the Silver Slipper, which looks here somewhat as it did in the 1960’s.
Thank you for the old Vegas pictures, Major. Proof that some things happening in Vegas don’t stay there.
JG
Nanook, it’s funny, I saw the name “Buddy Baer” and wondered if there was any relation to Max Bear Jr. and Sr., but didn’t look it up. Now I know!
JB, that first picture is just the tiniest bit blurry, one of the reasons I dragged my feet about sharing these. But it’s not too bad, I find it pretty acceptible. I assume the wood blocks for the car were there to prevent any chance of an accidental “rollaway”. I don’t know if I got “Julia Child” vibes from that lady in the last pic, but now that you’ve said it, I guess I can kind of see it. She does look tall!
Nanook, it’s sobering to think that Julia was taller than me. But she seemed like a hoot. I remember when her estate sale happened, my sister went hoping to get even a spatula or something, but she came home empty-handed.
TokyoMagic!, hmm, I kind of see the Maya Rudolph resemblance! You’ve never had Rice-A-Roni?? I actually like it, or used to, I haven’t had it for decades.
JB, it’s too bad you can’t be like me, I know everything.
Chuck, did any other cities have cable cars? San Francisco’s are so famous, but I imagine that there must have been other hilly cities that might have used them.
JG, I’m sure that in the 1950s, those faded passenger cars had little use except for tourist attractions. I’ve read that many were burned, which is sad to think about. I think the movie “The Wild Bunch”, a famous Western, has at least one motorized vehicle in it. I saw some of that film on TV, and it kind of blew my mind to see cowboys that weren’t on horseback! My dad grew up in Minnesota and worked on farms, and he used to talk about using horse-drawn vehicles when he was a kid. I imagine that the “cable car” was pulled by some sort of small truck or tractor, sort of like the “mules” used for the Disneyland Hotel trams in the early years.
Major, cable cars were the first powered street trams, and cities all over the country had them. Once electric and internal combustion motors became practical, they replaced the more expensive, less efficient, and frankly more dangerous (in the case of a tensioned cable snapping) cable cars rather quickly around the turn of the kart century. San Francisco hung onto them out of necessity thanks to their hilly topography, and by the time buses became practical on the hilly routes, the cable cars had become a tourist attraction and symbol of San Francisco.
That didn’t stop “progress-minded” city leaders from rapidly tearing up as much of the cable car system as quickly as possible in an effort to eradicate their city of such an “antiquated” and, in their minds, embarrassing mode of transportation. It’s fascinating (and depressing) to read about the deceptive lengths they went through to trick voters into approving removal of half the system in the 1950s by finagling the ballot so that voting ”yes” for cable cars meant “yes - remove them,” then rolling out a positive campaign to convince people to “vote ‘yes’ for cable cars.”
Make that “…around the turn of the last century…”
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