Hoover Dam Lodge is a

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a ref ...

and

casino A casino is a facility for certain types of gambling. Casinos are often built near or combined with hotels, resorts, restaurants, retail shopping, cruise ships, and other tourist attractions. Some casinos are also known for hosting live entertai ...

near

Boulder City Boulder City is a city in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is approximately southeast of Las Vegas. As of the 2020 census, the population of Boulder City was 14,885. The city took its name from Boulder Canyon. Boulder City is one of on ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

. It is owned and operated by Richard Craig Estey ( Nevada Restaurant Services). It was previously the Gold Strike until it was largely destroyed by an accidental fire on June 16, 1998. It reopened the next year as the Hacienda and then took on its current name in January 2015. The hotel is located on a parcel of private land surrounded by

Lake Mead National Recreation Area Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a U.S. national recreation area in southeastern Nevada and northwestern Arizona. Operated by the National Park Service, Lake Mead NRA follows the Colorado River corridor from the westernmost boundary of Gra ...

, three miles from

Hoover Dam Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on Se ...

. It overlooks

Lake Mead Lake Mead is a reservoir formed by the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River in the Southwestern United States. It is located in the states of Nevada and Arizona, east of Las Vegas. It is the largest reservoir in the US in terms of water capacity. L ...

and has a 17-story tower with 372 rooms. The casino has 154

slot machine A slot machine (American English), fruit machine (British English) or poker machine (Australian English and New Zealand English) is a gambling machine that creates a game of chance for its customers. Slot machines are also known pejoratively a ...

s and a

race and sports book In the United States, a sportsbook or a race and sports book (sometimes abbreviated as book) is a place where a gambler can wager on various sports competitions, including golf, football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey, soccer, horse racing, ...

operated by William Hill.

History

Gold Strike

The property was originally a

patented A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...

mining claim owned by Las Vegas real estate developer Patrick Sullivan, who was seeking gold and

turquoise Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrated phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula . It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone and ornamental stone for thousands of yea ...

. It became known as Sullivan's Gulch. In the 1920s, the

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, and formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it applies to the oversight and opera ...

withdrew over a million acres of land for the creation of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, but overlooked Sullivan's land. The

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

(NPS) made attempts to buy the land as early as 1936. In 1954, Sullivan's heirs sold the property for $20,000 to Boulder City businessman Don Belding, his business partner, O. L. Raney, and Jack Richardson. They saw an opportunity to service drivers going to and from the dam, and little competition because Boulder City prohibited gambling. They opened the Gold Strike Inn in May 1958 with a snack bar, gift shop, cocktail lounge, service station, and six slot machines. In the 1960s, the partners leased the site to a developer that hoped to expand it as an Old West theme park. The name was changed to Fort Lucinda and attractions such as llama rides, a wax museum, and a

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

railroad were added. A "ghost town" consisting of buildings from various northern Nevada towns was moved to the property from the

New Frontier The term ''New Frontier'' was used by Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy in his acceptance speech in the 1960 United States presidential election to the Democratic National Convention at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum as the D ...

casino. The project was killed by financing and water supply problems, control reverted to Belding, Raney, and Richardson, and the Gold Strike name returned. The NPS tried again to acquire the land in 1964, prior to the creation of Lake Mead National Recreation Area. A court settlement was eventually reached in 1973, with the government buying 87 undeveloped acres of the property, and agreeing not to discuss any further sale unless first approached by the Gold Strike's owners. In 1977, Belding and Richardson sold their shares to their sons, Dave and Bill, and Raney sold his interest to Circus Circus executive Mike Ensign. An 80-room hotel was opened in 1982, with another 80 rooms added in 1986, and a 16-story hotel tower in 1994. On June 16, 1998, an accidental fire started by a construction worker destroyed the Gold Strike casino, while leaving the hotel tower mostly undamaged.

Hacienda

The property was reopened in November 1999, at a cost of $30 million. A name change had already been planned, because the Gold Strike name had been sold to Circus Circus, so the property was renamed as the Hacienda. The Hacienda name was itself licensed from Circus Circus, which had owned the demolished

Hacienda An ''hacienda'' ( or ; or ) is an estate (or ''finca''), similar to a Roman ''latifundium'', in Spain and the former Spanish Empire. With origins in Andalusia, ''haciendas'' were variously plantations (perhaps including animals or orchards), ...

casino on the

Las Vegas Strip The Las Vegas Strip is a stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas Boulevard South in Clark County, Nevada, that is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos. The Strip, as it is known, is about long, and is immediately south of ...

. After several developers showed interest in buying the property to build a residential neighborhood or high-rise timeshare tower, the owners approached the NPS in 2003 with their willingness to consider an offer. The Secretary of Interior allocated up to $20 million for a purchase. The NPS hoped to tear down the tower, which they considered an "eyesore", and build a visitors center, offices, or a training center. The owners ultimately decided not to sell the Hacienda because they were uncertain about their ability to find new jobs for the employees if the property were to close. In December 2013, Nevada Restaurant Services, parent company of the statewide chain of

Dotty's Dotty's is a chain of slot machine parlors with about 175 locations in Nevada, Oregon and Montana and another 150 locations planned in Illinois. The business model is controversial, with sites "offering minimal food and beverage choices with a he ...

slot parlors, purchased the Hacienda. The company announced plans to renovate the property and build a new gas station and convenience store.

Hoover Dam Lodge

The property was renamed to Hoover Dam Lodge in January 2015.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://hooverdamlodge.com/, Hoover Dam Lodge Casinos in Clark County, Nevada Casinos completed in 1958 Hotel buildings completed in 1958 Hotels in Clark County, Nevada Buildings and structures in Clark County, Nevada Casino hotels Skyscrapers in Nevada Skyscraper hotels in Nevada