Gambling on Las Vegas Precast Concrete

The earliest humans in what is now the Las Vegas precast concrete gambling capital of the world were Paleo Indians who roamed the area nomadically, and who left petroglyphs behind to tell their story. A group of Anasazi Indians lived along the Virgin River and Muddy River on what is now Lake Mead, and their Lost City ruins in nearby Overton remain to this day.

The first European to enter the valley of Las Vegas was a scout named Rafael Rivera, who found the valley in 1829 to contain plentiful water and wild grass meadows, so he named the place Las Vegas (the meadows). Later explorer John C. Fremont found two springs in the valley when he visited in 1844, and his description of the beauty of the place brought early settlers there. In 1855 Mormons built a fort at Las Vegas to defend the route from Los Angeles to Salt Lake; and in fact ruins of the Mormon Fort still are visible at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue. In 1864 Nevada was admitted to the U.S. as a state; but its growth came with the discovery of gold and silver in the area in the late nineteenth century, as well as other minerals. In 1885 a State land act offered cheap land to farmers, and agriculture became the main economic support for the next few decades. Early in the twentieth century the railway linking Los Angeles to Salt Lake City made Las Vegas precast transformer pad a railway center, since abundant water made it a good rest stop and place to refuel.

Las Vegas became a city in 1905, when over a hundred acres of what is now central Las Vegas were auctioned off. Clark County was formed by the Nevada state legislature in 1909, and Las Vegas was incorporated in 1911 with a population of 800 souls. Liberal state divorce laws soon made it popular with the quick-divorce crowd, who stayed at dude ranches for six weeks to fulfill residence requirements before their divorce. These ranches were the forerunners of today's Strip hotels and casinos. But it wasn't until the construction of Hoover Dam - at that time, the world's tallest dam - in 1931, which brought a large influx of workers, that Las Vegas' population began to boom.

In the same year gambling was legalized by the Nevada legislature, which bolstered the entertainment and hotel industries over the next few decades. The lavish casinos, ornately baroque hotels, and Las Vegas electrical vault brought top name entertainers from nearby Los Angeles, which made it a major tourist destination from the 1950's onward. With World War II came the defense industry, in particular nearby Nellis Air Force Base, and also the Basic Management Complex. The world's first atomic bomb was detonated north of Las Vegas, and nuclear tests became another tourist attraction of the area until the 1963 nuclear test ban treaty.

Las Vegas precast concrete celebrated its centennial in 2005. The fabulous Las Vegas precast transformer pad Fremont Street Experience celebrates with a spectacular sound and light show at its Las Vegas electrical vault.