Dear Mrs. Petersen
Dear Mrs. Petersen,
Thank you so much for my very first—well, not very first, someone once criticized me for saying something apparently not very funny about dead people—letter to the editor! I know, taking a shot at Las Vegas for being “cheap and tacky” is pretty much the easy way to go.
I have since done extensive, as extensive as possible considering that today is Sunday and I don’t like to work on Sunday, research on Las Vegas and I have found some useful facts.
The name Las Vegas means ‘the meadows” in Spanish. White settlers first discovered the area when a young scout named Rafael Rivera found Las Vegas Springs around Christmas Day in1829, an oasis in the desert. The first I-15-ers to be lured by the promise of free drinks were in covered wagons on the way to California.
In 1855, Brigham Young sent a party of 30 there to convert the Piute Indians and maintain a hold on the mail route from Salt Lake to Los Angeles. A fort built there holds the record of being the oldest building built by a white male in Nevada. The Mormons were driven away two years later by Indian raids.
According to Wickipedia, the online encyclopedia, Herb McDonald, who wanted people to stay later and watch an extra show at his place, also invented the all-you-can-eat buffet in Las Vegas in 1946.
The $1.50 shrimp cocktail is the signature dish of the Las Vegas dining experience and the “food fantasy” aspect of Las Vegas is as important as the gambling experience. I read once about some exotic co-relation between eating and gambling—probably it’s the obvious one: folks who have enough to eat, have enough stamina to stay up all hours of the night gambling. I once saw a lady light a cigarette and let it completely burn down between her fingers without ever taking a puff or dislodging the ash while she worked a slot machine.
However, I now know that the Strip isn’t even in Las Vegas, its in Clark County.
Mainly, Mrs. Petersen, the fact is that the gambling and shows and lights are what people think of when they think of Las Vegas. When you look on the Internet, the first fifty pages are ads for hotels. In 1999 there were 193,000 jobs in the gaming and hotel industry in a city with a population of 536,000. There’s no personal state income tax, no sales tax, and low property taxes. Because of gambling.
Here’s the deal, it’s like much of life. People drive by and they see what they want to see. My husband’s nephew lives there and is a lawyer and I think just does regular lawyer stuff: wills, property disputes, the usual stuff. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t work for “the mob” or his dad would have told us.
I know that there are wonderful people who live there, people like you who actually take the time to write and defend where they live. There’s the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Nellis Air Force Base, the LDS temple, UNLV, and Hoover Dam. I wish I knew 100 things I like about Las Vegas, but I don’t.
So next time I drive to California, I promise I will get off the highway and spend the night off the Strip, and find out what it is that makes you love it so.
Thank you so much for writing and helping to set me straight. I really appreciate it—not to mention the three hours I’ve spent fooling around on the Internet looking up odd bits of information. Fortunately, that’s one of my favorite things to do.
P.S. Did you know that 12% of southern Nevada is LDS?
Thank you so much for my very first—well, not very first, someone once criticized me for saying something apparently not very funny about dead people—letter to the editor! I know, taking a shot at Las Vegas for being “cheap and tacky” is pretty much the easy way to go.
I have since done extensive, as extensive as possible considering that today is Sunday and I don’t like to work on Sunday, research on Las Vegas and I have found some useful facts.
The name Las Vegas means ‘the meadows” in Spanish. White settlers first discovered the area when a young scout named Rafael Rivera found Las Vegas Springs around Christmas Day in1829, an oasis in the desert. The first I-15-ers to be lured by the promise of free drinks were in covered wagons on the way to California.
In 1855, Brigham Young sent a party of 30 there to convert the Piute Indians and maintain a hold on the mail route from Salt Lake to Los Angeles. A fort built there holds the record of being the oldest building built by a white male in Nevada. The Mormons were driven away two years later by Indian raids.
According to Wickipedia, the online encyclopedia, Herb McDonald, who wanted people to stay later and watch an extra show at his place, also invented the all-you-can-eat buffet in Las Vegas in 1946.
The $1.50 shrimp cocktail is the signature dish of the Las Vegas dining experience and the “food fantasy” aspect of Las Vegas is as important as the gambling experience. I read once about some exotic co-relation between eating and gambling—probably it’s the obvious one: folks who have enough to eat, have enough stamina to stay up all hours of the night gambling. I once saw a lady light a cigarette and let it completely burn down between her fingers without ever taking a puff or dislodging the ash while she worked a slot machine.
However, I now know that the Strip isn’t even in Las Vegas, its in Clark County.
Mainly, Mrs. Petersen, the fact is that the gambling and shows and lights are what people think of when they think of Las Vegas. When you look on the Internet, the first fifty pages are ads for hotels. In 1999 there were 193,000 jobs in the gaming and hotel industry in a city with a population of 536,000. There’s no personal state income tax, no sales tax, and low property taxes. Because of gambling.
Here’s the deal, it’s like much of life. People drive by and they see what they want to see. My husband’s nephew lives there and is a lawyer and I think just does regular lawyer stuff: wills, property disputes, the usual stuff. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t work for “the mob” or his dad would have told us.
I know that there are wonderful people who live there, people like you who actually take the time to write and defend where they live. There’s the Las Vegas Philharmonic, Nellis Air Force Base, the LDS temple, UNLV, and Hoover Dam. I wish I knew 100 things I like about Las Vegas, but I don’t.
So next time I drive to California, I promise I will get off the highway and spend the night off the Strip, and find out what it is that makes you love it so.
Thank you so much for writing and helping to set me straight. I really appreciate it—not to mention the three hours I’ve spent fooling around on the Internet looking up odd bits of information. Fortunately, that’s one of my favorite things to do.
P.S. Did you know that 12% of southern Nevada is LDS?
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