Las Vegas has long been known as the entertainment capital of the world, but most recently it’s also taken its place as a major market for major sporting events. “At one time we couldn’t even get a major team here, because of our gambling. We were the gambling Mecca of the world, and they were afraid of that combination, but now that doesn’t make any difference anymore,” says Claytee White, Director of UNLV’s Oral History Research Center. The Center looking to hear the story of sports here in the Las Vegas Valley through the anecdotes of those who call it home.

It's a day locked in the memories of students and staff at UNLV. Dec. 6, 2023, the day three professors were murdered and a fourth injured by a gunman at Beam Hall. Now, items left at temporary memorials on campus have been collected and preserved.

The Tropicana has been synonymous with old-world Las Vegas glamour for nearly seven decades – but the legendary landmark has now closed its doors to make way for a $1.5 billion baseball stadium. As historians scramble to preserve the Tropicana’s colourful past, the site’s sporting future exemplifies the city’s ever-changing identity

The legendary Tropicana has closed its doors, but Las Vegas' raucous history is still celebrated in sites devoted to the mob, neon and even divorce. Las Vegas rose like a mirage from the lonely Nevada desert in the 1940s and has since gained a reputation for  looking forward and building upward without sentiment or regret. But even the most hard-hearted resident had to give pause last week when it was announced that the beloved Tropicana resort will be demolished and replaced by a Major League Baseball stadium.

Representatives of Bally’s Corp. and Las Vegas’ Neon Museum are still assessing how they will rescue a stained-glass atrium canopy that arched over the Tropicana’s main casino for years. But one other piece of Trop history — a blue neon sign over one of the entrances of the shuttered hotel-casino — was illuminated in a ceremonial flick of a switch Wednesday.

Las Vegas isn’t good at documenting its art history. Does it matter? I've lately been racking what’s left of my brain for details of an old exhibit — a show by local artists who created work to protest Steve Wynn’s implosion of the Dunes. So, this would’ve been sometime in 1993, maybe? Organized by the then-newish Contemporary Arts Collective, it took place in a storefront on Maryland Parkway near UNLV. I think. I mean, it’s been a few years.