History of Las Vegas: A Captivating Guide to Historical Events and Facts You Should Know About the Entertainment Capital of the World (U.S. History) by History Captivating

Author:History, Captivating
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-26T00:00:00+00:00

Creating Paradise

The flurry of construction on the Strip at the end of World War II made city officials drool at the potential tax revenue lying just out of their reach across the city limits. In 1950, Mayor Ernie Cragin moved to annex the area, with plans to use the funds generated to pay down municipal debt and support an ambitious building program.

Gus Greenbaum put together a group of casino executives to stop the annexation. They went to the county commissioners and asked for status as a town, a strategy that would prevent the city from extending the city limits without the county’s approval.

The plan succeeded, leading to the creation of the unincorporated town of Paradise on December 8th, 1950, with boundaries a mile wide and four miles long. The area began at the southern edge of Las Vegas and ended south of the Flamingo.

Paradise would be governed by an advisory board made up of five members, all casino managers, with Greenbaum as the chairman. A month later, the boundaries were extended to bring in nearby residential areas for a total of fifty-four square miles.

But cliché though it may sound, there were always problems in Paradise. The petition to form the town lacked an adequate number of signatures. Since it spanned two school districts, the entire arrangement violated state law.

The county corrected the issues on August 20th, 1951, by accepting petitions to form two towns—“A” and “B.” In 1953, town “A” became Winchester, which includes portions of the Las Vegas school district. It required a one-mile extension of the city limits to the south. Town “B,” Paradise, hosts its own school district.

A second attempt at annexing the Strip and surrounding environs at the state level occurred in 1975 with the passage of a law that would have affected Paradise, Winchester, and Sunrise Manor. However, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled the measure unconstitutional before any action could be taken.

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