angeles, salt lake and san pedro railroad. they bought a ranch from a woman named helen stewart and decided they were going to lay owe town out here. people would say hey, i want to buy a lot on lot 22. the original plan had las vegas divided into 40 blocks. they need aid place for what they called vice -- the classic wild west vice, drinking, gamblingnd add prostitution. here's the thing. las vegas was going -- 0000 -- to be a respectable town. so you couldn't have it on fremont street. that was the main street. so it was a little bit away from the trainization -- station and one block off fremont. if you walked down a block, turned left and walked down another block from the train station, that's right where it is. so if a man comes to las vegas with his family they could stay on fremont street and have a wholesome time and if he comes by himself not and wants to see a little bit of the world, he can make a lift -- left and walk down there and see -- have an interesting time in 1905 the state decided they were done with gambling. they wanted to be a real progressive state. then a couple years later they realized people were still gambling the so then, we'll allow card games, penny ante. then in 1931 they took the plunge, during the great depression, and they were hard hit, took the plunge and relegalized gambling. the governor signed that legislation in late march. the first week of april the las vegas city commission met and they granted the first four licenses to casinos and here is the minute book reflecting that vote. we see they granted a license to the boulder club, to the las vegas club, to the exchange club, and to the northern club. these were the first four gambling halls -- they weren't casinos. just a bar with a couple of tables that they granted a license to. these were really small scale and for a long time in las vegas there was this need by folks in the chamber of commerce and other people to say you know what? we need a first-class hotel the this is when hoover dam was being built and they said if we just could have a first-class hotel in downtown vegas, we could become a huge tourism mechanica. finally in the late 1930's, a guy named thomas hull said he's beout on uilt a hotel highway 91, the road that linked l.a. to las vegas. there is a really interesting story about this. so supposedly, it's apocryphal, he was driving to las vegas and his car broke down and he sat on the side of the road. he sent his friend to go into town and get help, which is why i think it's apocryphal, because he wouldn't be much of a friend after he walkeds three miles in the desert heat, and he counts the cars going past and says you know what? this is where i should build -- build my hotel, not downtown here i am competing with everybody. and train people, do i really need them? i want the automobile people. this was a big boom in car culture. autopia, the interstate highway system. so he built the rancho vegas out on highway 91. if you look at this, it gives you an idea. you can see that sex ways little parted of the package even then, in a very sedate way. this does not look like an urban gambling hall. this is some wr out in the wild west. it opened, 63 rooms. this was considered big at the time. this was the first time in the united states they built an isolated gambling destination. they'd done it down in mexico t agua caliente but the mexico government had banned gambling there. it was the same architecture he what made el rancho vegas different was you could do everything there. back when gambling was legal, they wanted people to lose their money and leave quickly. bust-out games, they would lose and go. here you had a shot at legitimacy. there is that house incidental though. that means over time the customer will lose. but if they can get lucky and win. you want things around to keep them from leaving the casino. you went them to lose their money back to you. you have stuff like this. this man has thrown caution to the pinned. he's eating a piece of pie. i don't know whether he is salivating or the pie is crying because it's getting eaten to death. but el rancho vegas had the first casino buffett. the idea was you go in there, it was one dollar at first, chuck wagon buffett. you stuff yourself with all the od and you are so wound down you keep gambling, you are stuck in the casino, that was the idea and this worked. it was very successful and several other casinos opened i on the las vegas strip after that. so this idea that you wanted a lot of attractions around to keep people in the casino was good business. we've all heard about the rat pack. but the interesting thing is a lot of the entertainered -- entertainers really started to make their name big there. sammy davis jr., when he started there, was the will matson treeo, his dad and uncle and at some point sammy became bigger. as this memo from the william morris agency shows, the billing mr. davis needed was his name had to be in the same trio ype as bill mastin and at some point he game -- became even bigger. one of the great things about las vegas this this time was that you could meet celebs. -- celebrities. you could hob-knob with celebrities. so, for example, they have the executive vice president of national tire dealers and retreaders association had a meeting at the sands and sammy davis jr. comes to their party and eve gets to meet sammy davis jr. so imagine if you are a tire dealer and now you can say i met sammy davis jr., i shook his hand. this is what made las vegas so special in the 1950's. scaller -- it was a much smaller scale. after a while it started to get bigger and you didn't have that personal connection with the celebrities there. there was a lot of soul searching about what at that do. a lot of people thought the town was getting boring the one was jay sarnow, who had a very good relationship with jimmy hoffa and the teamsters. he decided, he came to vegas in 1963 and shated -- hated it, he thought it was -- it was the most borg place. even though he was a compulse ib gambler and liked to do a lot ncht other things people do had they come to vegas. he built ail place called seas seas ar's e -- palace. -- c early. sar's palace. if you were lucky enough to be invited to the opening, you had a big beefy guy come to your ouse and hand you this scroll. were you invited to an orgy of excitement featuring ande williams and dancing maidens. this was really great. e idea, what made caesar's plails -- palace difference -- different was the hordes of gladiators and maidens are here to serve your every wish and command. this is what made las vegas a different kind of destination and jay had the idea of what happens in investigates -- in vegas stays in vegas just -- long before anybody else did. that is, vegas is special. up don't just go there and have a night out. you go there and the women in the restaurant are wine goddesses, they massage your temples, peel the grapes and 23u9 -- tut -- put them in your mouth and you are the center of attention. it became the most successful casino on the strip for years until the mirage opened. another change that happened in 9196 -- in the 1960's is that the industry continued to scale up so a place like the sands when it opened it 400, 300 rooms, pretty small. they found out you could make a lot of money running a casino, so outside businesses started to get interested. one was kirk kerkorian, who made a lot of money in the of a -- aviation industry. he decided you know what? the real money is in running the businesses. this is the original presentation booklet for his international hotel. he build it off the strip. here is what the international was planned to look like. one thing you will notice is that it's a big building in the middle of a parking lot and you have this flat structure which has the san antonio -- casino d theater in it and this big tower, 30 stories high and y-shaped. this was the first y-shaped casino in vegas. in the 1990's, a lot of the casinos that were built followed this model. this was the first real modern casino in this way and set the pattern for what wa going to come. this opened in 1969. july 1969. so the next really big event on the las vegas strip was the opening of the mirage in 1989. it was build -- built by steve wynn, who baht a small downtown gambling club called the golden nugget. he made a big splash in atlantic city we are built the golden nugget -- nugget atlantic city. he was able to get investors, using junk bonds, and he got $150 million to build the mirage. the biggest project before had been $200 million. really different, really ground-breaking the one of the things that really set the mirage apart was it was not a casino with a hotel aattached -- attached, it was a hotel with a casino. you had the big acts, like siegfried and roy. incredibly expensive shows at the time but people paid it because it was a good show. you have the little dolphin hab i at. you couldn't picture the casinos from back in the day -- you know, the sands hotel had frank, dean, and sammy. they didn't have a dollpin habity atd the this never would have -- they would have laughed this out of the room in 1953. what? there's nobody gambling the this is how las vegas changed in the 1990's. it became about more than just gambling the that was a really -- really good move because gambling was expanding across the united states and they couldn't compete on just gambling. the difference between las vegas and reno is las vegas diversified beyond gambling. most of the money now comes from the rooms and fancy restaurants. they've really changed the model the you're not going to nd a lot of stuff that explicitly talks about the mob because these people didn't like to leave written records back when you would put them in jail. but most of them came out of illegal gambling and most were connected in some ways to organized crime. so you definitely had that influence here and if you know how to look for it, certain fames of -- names of people you can see which people were more connected than oz. it's really important to document the history of the casino industry in las vegas and every wr buzz it's such a controversial industry, such a history with organized crime that there is a lot of misinformation out there and it's great to go in and see first hand, this is what really happened and the people who built the industry, this is what we -- they were trying to do. that's why i think it's so valuable. it can tell you what it was really like. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to las vegas, nevada, to learn about its rich history. learn more about las vegas and her stops on our tour at c-span.org/citiestour. you are watching american mist tv. all weekend every weekend on c-span 3. >> citizens have got to feel that their vote matters, that their voice matters and whether they can not spare a single cent to help a person running for office or whether they can write a big check, that their concerns, their struggles will be listened to and followed up on. >> sunday night on "q&a," wisconsin senator tammy baldwin talks about her career in politics. >> bob lafollette sr. helped shepherd the change whereby senators were not appointed by the legislatures, but demanded elections. so i guess those, i don't know if it was the first but the idea that it wasn't going to be the party bosses who made the decision of who the nominees were in smoke-filled back rooms but rather the people who were you know, going to get a chance to vote in free and fair elections. >> sunday night. >> now, professors and authors talk about the opportunities and challenges for the african-american community in the south and west during reconstruction. they discuss topics such as the role of black lawyers, participation in local politics by men and women, and race relations in the western states. the university of south carolina's history center and historic columbia co-hosted this hour and 15-minute event. >> the an exciting day. finally, after four long years of the civil war, we can finally go on to the really important work and talk about reconstruction. 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