Las Vegas: 100 Years and Counting: The Center of the Tradeshow Universe

•The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad makes its inaugural run from California to points east on Jan. 20. Railroad owner and Montana Sen. Williams A. Clark auctions off 1,200 lots at the corner of Fremont and Main streets on May 15. The canvas-topped Hotel Las Vegas, with 30 rooms, is the first hotel to open in the new town.

•The first-class Hotel Nevada opens on Jan. 13 with 54 rooms and charges $1 per night. The owners paid $1,750 for the prime Fremont St. frontage in 1905. The hotel would later install the first telephone in Las Vegas.

•First paved road in Vegas is Fremont.

•The Las Vegas economy survives the devastation of the Great Depression, in part because of the Hoover Dam project, which employs more than 5,000 people.

•In late March, the Nevada Legislature approves legalized gambling. (Gambling had been outlawed on Oct. 1, 1910, but underground casinos began operating within three weeks of the ban.)

•On April 1, the Clark County Commission grants its first four gambling licenses.

•Hotel Nevada is expanded to 90 rooms and changes its name to Sal Sagev (Las Vegas spelled backwards). Plans are underway to open a "cooling plant" by the summer of 1932. (Sal Sagev becomes the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino when Italo Ghelfi and several partners purchase the historical site in 1955.)

•Helldorado Days begins as an event to attract tourists and to persuade Hoover Dam workers to stay in Las Vegas once the dam is completed.

•On Sept. 30, President Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Hoover Dam. His motorcade travels down Fremont St. on the way to the site 34 miles away.

•Hotelier Tommy Hull builds the first major resort, El Rancho Vegas Hotel and Casino, on what is now vacant land opposite the current Sahara Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. The El Cortez Hotel and Casino opens downtown. Further resort expansion is stalled by World War II.

•The success of El Rancho Vegas triggers a small building boom after the end of World War II (which temporarily stalled resort expansion).

•United Airlines inaugurates service to Las Vegas. McCarran Field (named after Sen. Patrick A. McCarran), commissioned in 1941 and becomes a joint-use facility for the Army Air Corps Flexible Gunnery School. McCarran Airport is officially renamed McCarran Intl. Airport in 1968.

•The Ranger test series commences with the first atomic explosion on Jan. 25 at the Nevada Proving Grounds (to become the Nevada Test Site in 1955), just 65 miles from Las Vegas. The Las Vegas Review-Journal headline declares, "VEGAS A-BOMB POPS!"

•The Moulin Rouge Hotel-Casino opens as the first racially integrated casino. Joe Louis, former heavyweight champion, is an owner/host.

•The Riviera Hotel opens and is the first Strip high-rise at nine stories.

•City and county leaders realize the need for a convention facility, primarily to fill hotel rooms with conventioneers during slack tourist months. A site is chosen one block east of the Las Vegas Strip for a 6,300-seat, silver-domed rotunda with an adjoining 90,000 sq. ft. exhibit hall.

•The Las Vegas Convention Center opens April 12 with Vegas' first trade-show — World Congress of Flight.

•The first mention of Las Vegas in the recently launched Tradeshow Week is in connection with the Fall Joint Computer Conference to be held at the LVCC Nov. 15–18.

•On Feb. 15, TSW reports that the LVCC will add 150,000 gross sq. ft., offering show managers a total of 375,000 gross sq. ft.

•Las Vegas hosts six of the top 150 shows held in the United States, according to the newly launched Tradeshow Week 150. The American Mining Congress Coal Show at the LVCC is the city's highest-ranked show at No. 17.

•COMDEX debuts at the LVCC in late November.

•More than 1 million people attend 499 events in Las Vegas, breaking all records in the city's 80-year history (TSW Feb. 4, 1985).

•TSW June 10 headline reads, "Las Vegas Raises Rates for the First Time in 26 Years." The article goes on to report that the exhibit space rate had been 5 cents per net sq. ft. per day since 1959. The new flat daily rate will be 15 cents times 50 percent of the gross sq. ft. contained in the hall(s) used by the show.

•CONEXPO '87 is ranked No. 1 on the TSW 200. Las Vegas is designated a Foreign Trade Zone, allowing CONEXPO to postpone custom duties on exhibited equipment until it leaves the town.

•The silver dome of the LVCC is demolished to make room for convention center expansion to a 1.6 million sq. ft. facility, of which 1.3 million sq. ft. is exhibit space. It becomes one of the largest single-level facilities in the world. The LVCVA is a major player in attracting more than 28.2 million visitors to Las Vegas in 1994, including more than 2 million convention delegates.

•Las Vegas hosts 25 of the TSW 200 shows, becoming the No. 1 tradeshow destination in the U.S. (and continues to hold that spot to the present).