For the next two decades, Las Vegas was a simple, small western town like so many others. Nothing even hinted at what the city would become—except maybe its unusual local customs. Las Vegas’ main industry was the railroad, which became master of the town, responsible for its economy as well as the town’s open social climate. Las Vegas had all the virtues and vices of railroad towns. It was tough, raw, and sometimes mean. The rules of cultured city life not only didn’t apply, they didn’t exist. Las Vegas had no law that forbid prostitution. As long as soliciting customers, along with the gambling and drinking, stayed on two city blocks, it was considered “almost legal.”

But a one-owner town always had its drawbacks for the people who lived there. Even though locals enjoyed considerable leeway, the railroad maintained tremendous control. Communities like early Las Vegas were wise to heed their masters. When they didn’t, disaster resulted. After Union Pacific bought the railroad in 1921, the new company laid off 60 workers, angering the town. The next year, railroad workers paid their new bosses back by shutting down during the national railroad strike of 1922. The new masters were not amused. In retribution, Union Pacific signed the town’s death warrant, moving the maintenance shop and 300 jobs to Caliente, about 125 miles uptrack toward Utah. The railroad domain came quickly to an end as arbitrarily as it started and Las Vegas was consigned to the scrapheap of history. It had to adapt or diminish, wither, and finally become extinct.

The times that followed the railroad’s departure were the bleakest in modern Las Vegas’ short history. The whistlestop could easily have become a ghost town. For the first time in its history, but not for the last, Las Vegas needed a savior.

The decision to construct Boulder Dam—since renamed Hoover Dam—the largest public works project ever built up to that time, breathed new life into Las Vegas.

Las Vegas from 1931 to 1955 experienced considerable growth, and you can read about it in the April issue of M lifestyle. See you in the spring.