Death of the Frontier

"Las Vegas has become, just as Bugsy Siegel dreamed, the American Monte Carlo—without any of the inevitable upper-class baggage of the Riviera casinos." - Tom Wolfe

Sept. 12, 2007

By Leah Bailly
Bodog Nation Contributing Writer

Imagine Elvis. Imagine it's 1956 in a small Las Vegas club. The stage strung with lights waits patiently, while outside, in some hundred degrees of desert heat, hordes of screaming girls call out his name. Imagine it's the King's first live performance in Sin City.

Imagine Ronald Reagan, center stage with a spotlight so bright his teeth glow. It's 1954, a year before the joint is to be renamed. It's still the Last Frontier. Twelve years before Howard Hughes adds it to his real estate portfolio. Before Wayne Newton even hits the Strip.

Imagine before there was a Strip at all. It's 1938 and ex-police captain Guy McAfee is kicked out of Los Angeles for sordid deals with the mob. Seeking loose laws and a chance to win big, McAfee flees to Vegas and buys the Pair-O-Dice Club on Highway 91. He starts calling the string of restaurants and empty desert "The Strip" after his favorite haunt, the Sunset Strip back in L.A. And, in a matter of months, the club is renamed the 91 Club, Las Vegas' hottest night spot on the site of what would eventually become the New Frontier.

And now, some 70 years later, it's over. On July 14, 2007, perhaps not a moment too soon, the New Frontier closed its doors for good. What was, in 1942, the second hotel/casino built in the area, the Last Frontier was renamed in 1955 the New Frontier, just a year before Elvis' first Las Vegas performance. Home to Siegfried and Roy for seven years, Wayne Newton for most of the 1960s and Diana Ross and the Supremes' final show, the New Frontier was the oldest continually-operating hotel and casino on the Las Vegas Strip.

Vegas' Yesteryear

A little slice of Vegas history is set to be demolished.

So, what remained of the New Frontier in 2007? Perhaps the beauty was in the details. Real coin slots, $47 suites and the only bingo hall on the Strip. The New Frontier was the not-so-ironic look of Vegas' yesteryear; Vegas in its 1970s glory. Whose steakhouse boasted thick and juicy steaks with eggs for $4.99. Whose red pleather chairs and aged waitresses meant you were called "Hon" no matter your age or sneer. And in a 100,000 square-foot casino, in front of $1 million sports screens, the infamous "Cashgrab!" was a gorgeous metaphor for Vegas itself. It was a whirlwind of $1 bills, if only you could get your fists around them fast enough.

Perhaps most visceral of the New Frontier's venues was the hip-slapping, loud and rowdy, honky-tonk bar called Giley's. Named for the Urban Cowboy club in Texas, Giley's featured your standard bikini bull riding, mud wrestling and $15 all-you-can-drink beer. Imagine. Some Texan accent shouting over loud speakers every 10 minutes, "Cowgirls ride free!" You try to appear calm as the Kansas line-dancing Billy Ray starts begging for a two-step, his buddy at his side, deep-throating bottle after bottle of Bud.

It wasn't pretty.

But Las Vegas itself isn't claiming to be anything beautiful, or pure. When Captain McAfee resigned from the L.A. force back in 1938, his connections to brothels, gambling and the mob were unhidden. Upon arriving in Las Vegas, he created "Paradise, Nevada," whereby the activities we saw in a "blowjobs and Budweiser" bar like Giley's were honored, even encouraged. And what better a location than a down-home, authentic Las Vegas relic. Built by gangsters, graced by stars, refined by America's cow-folk in all its redneck glory.

Tomorrow's Replacement

And now, after a few too many years in business, the New Frontier is slated to be imploded sometime this year.

Former owner Phil Ruffin signed a deal worth $34 million per acre for the New Frontier land, the most expensive land sale in Las Vegas history. With a New York/Israeli development group dropping more than $1.24 billion on the property, plans for a $5 billion complex will include 3,500 new hotel rooms and 300 permanent residences. A far cry from the $14 million Howard Hughes spent on the property in 1967.

When the recluse billionaire Howard Hughes stepped onto the property for the first time, his attention was on its proximity to his infamous Desert Inn on the opposite side of Highway 91. It wasn't long before Hughes had constructed a tunnel under the Strip to connect the two casinos, whereby certain VIPs would be ushered underneath the hum of traffic and tourists to play a late-night spot at his revered casino stage.

Now, within spitting distance of the recently destroyed Stardust (imploded last November to make room for super resort Echelon Place) and the ancient and barely-remembered Desert Inn (now replaced by Wynn, and soon to be Wynn Encore), the New Frontier will soon just be Las Vegas folklore. With the current trend to build new rather than renovate, the Strip skyscape will soon be filled with a Las Vegas plaza, mirroring the New York plaza in Manhattan… And will memory do the iconic hotel/casino justice? Will the tribute websites and newspaper articles fade into historians' files? Some hope so.

But some Las Vegans want to remember Elvis. Twenty-one years old and his first show in the city that would be his demise… What is left of our New Frontier is a pile of musty carpet and a flashing "Bingo" sign. The bikini bull riders have morphed into LAX girls. That Kansas two-stepper will have to seek new meat in faux Paris or Venice, and the old "Cashgrab" machine is temporarily out of order. But rest assured. We won't have to wait long for its $5 billion replacement.

TOP PHOTO: Liberace, his brother George and Elvis Presley at the New Frontier Hotel and Casino on April 30, 1956.