Westside Timeline

Pioneer rancher Helen J. Stewart hires surveyor J. T. McWilliams to map out 1,800 acres of ranch land she owns in the Las Vegas valley to make way for the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City Railroad. While surveying the Stewart Ranch site, McWilliams identifies 80 unclaimed acres bordering the intended route of the railroad.

The railroad completes its connection to Las Vegas and the McWilliams Townsite becomes the first business district in the valley, serving as an important supply point. The town of Las Vegas is founded as a city on May 15, 1905, when 110 acres of land to the east of the railroad tracks are auctioned off by the railroad company.

The railroad land auction of 1905 changes the trajectory of the McWilliams Townsite when the railroad partners decide that downtown Las Vegas will be on the east side, ensuring they could own downtown for themselves. McWilliams Townsite settlers largely move to the east of the tracks.

(Photo courtesy of the Ferron and Bracken Photograph Collection, UNLV University Libraries)

Zion Methodist Church opens in 1917 and is noted as the oldest African American church in Las Vegas.

There is a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s. This time, they seek a national presence spewing hatred against immigrants, Catholics, Jews and Blacks. In 1925, local KKK members march down Fremont Street in full regalia.

Nevada receives federal approval to build the Hoover Dam, giving way to a population boom. The NAACP Las Vegas Branch 1111 is started by Arthur McCants, Zimmy Turner, Mary Nettles, Bill Jones and Clarence Ray. Arthur McCants is the first branch president.

African Americans begin purchasing land in the Westside to start their own thriving businesses. The longtime existing Jim Crow Laws continue to encourage segregation during this new prosperity.

Although the African American population in Las Vegas has nearly doubled with the promise of work, only an estimated 44 African Americans (out of some 20,000 workers hired) find jobs on the Hoover Dam during its 1931-1935 construction. None of the African American workers are allowed to live in Boulder City, a federal town built to house Hoover Dam workers. Consequently, African Americans come to the Westside, setting up tent housing for themselves and their families, and a larger community begins.

The Westside population explodes during World War II as many African Americans are hired from the South to fill jobs at Basic Magnesium Incorporated (BMI) in nearby Henderson and the Las Vegas Army Air Gunnery Range (now Nellis Air Force Base).

(Photo courtesy of the Henderson Public Library Photograph Collection on Henderson, Nevada, UNLV University Libraries)

Some 3,000 African Americans now live in Southern Nevada and only have access to the most menial jobs. African Americans remain separated from White patrons in movie theaters and excluded from most restaurants. Restrictive segregation practices provide an opportunity for African American entrepreneurship to thrive on the Westside. Community members create their own business core on Jackson Avenue, including casinos, restaurants and services. While growth comes quickly, housing fails to keep up, increasing the number of tent encampments. City officials do little to address the housing shortage, thinking that African Americans will leave just as quickly as they came once the war is over; but they stay. Simple amenities such as sewage lines, electricity and paved streets, commonplace in the rest of Las Vegas, come slowly to the Westside; it takes petitioning by residents to receive access to these services.

Sarann Knight Preddy becomes the first African American woman in Nevada to receive a gaming license for the Tonga Club in Hawthorne, Nevada. She and her family will launch an effort to reopen the Moulin Rouge more than 30 years later.

The Westside is booming. Political activism and women’s clubs sprout up throughout the Westside throughout the 1950s. African American professionals, who first moved into the area from the 1930s onward, begin moving into the Westside in increasing numbers in the 1950s. Leaders and long-term residents fight for improved economic and civil rights.

The Moulin Rouge Hotel Casino at 900 W. Bonanza Road becomes the first integrated gaming establishment in the Westside that rivals those on the Strip, opening its doors May 24. It takes $3.5 million to build, and quickly becomes a national sensation. In addition, to being the first racially integrated hotel-casino, the Moulin Rouge affords African Americans work in more visible, well-paying jobs, such as dealers, cocktail servers, bartenders, security guards and managers.

The Moulin Rouge closes in November, just as quickly as it opened. The hotel and casino re-open almost immediately, but never to the same standards.

(Photo courtesy of UNLV University Libraries)

Nevada gains its first African American member of the legal community. Charles L. Kellar arrives in Las Vegas from New York, sent by Thurgood Marshall, a member of the legal division of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Kellar comes to Las Vegas in 1959 to establish residency to fulfill the one-year requirement before receiving a passing score for the Nevada bar examination in 1960 (though Kellar is not admitted to the Nevada bar until 1965, following lengthy legal challenges).

A meeting of black Las Vegas leaders: Charles Kellar, Woodrow Wilson, Clarence Ray, Jim Anderson and Reverend Davis (identified from left to right, photo courtesy of Collections and Archives, University Libraries, UNLV)

On April 26, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gives a speech at the Las Vegas NAACP Chapter Freedom Fund Banquet and at a public rally the next day to drum up support for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This was Dr. King’s only visit to Las Vegas. “Old Man Segregation is on his death bed,” Dr. King said in his speech. “The only thing I’m concerned with is how costly the segregationists are going to make the funeral.” Notably, Bob Bailey is a former schoolmate of Dr. King’s at Morehouse College in Atlanta and is among those greeting him at McCarran Field (later, McCarran International Airport and now, Harry Reid International Airport).

In September, the Economic Opportunity Board (EOB) is incorporated in the State of Nevada, and becomes the largest nonprofit agency in Nevada. The first office is opened on the Westside on April 5, 1965. EOB begins with a program development grant of $25,000 under the Economic Opportunity Act, as part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty Program.

In October, the city faces several days of race riots. The explosion of racial tension due to lack of equality leads to a community in turmoil– police barricade entrances to confine the riot within the Westside neighborhood and a curfew imposed by Mayor Oran K. Gragson and enforced by the National Guard lasts for four days. It is reported by the media on October 9, 1969, that “everything was back to normal.”

KCEP Power 88, known as “The People’s Station,” launches in Nucleus Plaza (formerly the Golden West Shopping Center) in 1972 with just 10 watts (now 10,000 watts). KCEP radio later relocates to the Historic Westside School in the early 1980s.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upholds the lower court’s ruling for the Clark County School District to develop a mandatory desegregation plan. The Sixth Grade Center Plan of integration is adopted by Clark County School District; White children are bused to African American schools on the Westside for sixth grade only, and African American children are bused to White schools for 11 grades out of the 12 (excluding the sixth grade).

Clark County schools integrate following the court decision in Kelly v. Guinn.

Sarann Knight Preddy (in 1950, the first Black woman in Nevada to hold a full gaming license), buys the Moulin Rouge with her husband, Joe Preddy. They are unable to secure the financing required to renovate the hotel and eventually are forced to sell the Moulin Rouge to a developer. However, the Moulin Rouge’s designation on the National Register of Historic Places is secured by Preddy, her friends and family.

(Photo courtesy of Clinton Wright Photographic Negatives Collection, UNLV University Libraries)

In the 1992-93 academic year, the 1972 Sixth Grade Center Plan of Integration ends after African American families in West Las Vegas organize a boycott in favor of neighborhood schools. Clark County School District is again defending racially charged lawsuits from parents and African American educators.

Under threat of boycott, the Clark County school board adopts its desegregation plan, called the Prime Six plan in 1992, which the board amends in 1994. It is geared to stop the busing of White sixth graders, minimize the busing of African American elementary students and improve educational opportunities for all students.

In December, the city of Las Vegas restricts alcohol sales within 400 feet of a church and prohibits taverns from locating within 1,500 feet of a church. These restrictions create even more challenges for potential restaurant or club owners looking to invest, given the large number of churches in the neighborhood.

The West Las Vegas Neighborhood Plan, a community plan that reflects the visions and aspirations of the neighborhood, is created.

Local and federal agents investigate a fire that gutted the historic Moulin Rouge Casino, the first integrated gambling spot in Las Vegas. Over the years, other major fires cause significant damage at the Moulin Rouge.

The updated West Las Vegas Plan, a land use plan integrating previous plans and guiding activities to generate private investment, commercial projects and housing units in the area, is completed.

A second fire occurs at the Moulin Rouge site in May – a day after it fails to sell at a foreclosure auction.

After six years of protest, the F Street underpass reopens in December – a $13.6 million project that is shared by the city of Las Vegas and the Nevada Department of Transportation. The underpass today bears the Historic Westside name and is decorated with a series of murals depicting scenes of historic significance to the West Las Vegas neighborhood, as well as two decorative towers resembling the architecture of the historic Moulin Rouge.

Las Vegas Fire and Rescue extinguishes a two-alarm fire that damages three buildings at the old Moulin Rouge Hotel site in July. Another two-alarm fire swallows the building in October and the historic building is totally destroyed. While the hope is to save the historic building’s skeleton, it is gutted by fire, and city officials agree that demolition is the safest course of action.

Clark County makes a bid on the Moulin Rouge site – which is in receivership – but rescinds amid public backlash for its plans to build a government building. Multiple offers to buy the site from the court appointed receiver come in over the next several years, but none are realized.