Las Vegas means "the meadows," named for the green meadows travelers on the Old Spanish Trail found here in the 1800s. Brigham Young sent 30 Mormon missionaries to the Las Vegas Valley in 1855. Their fort became the first white settlement in the area. A stop for travelers between Salt Lake City and San Bernardino and later a railroad town, Las Vegas became an incorporated city in 1911.

The building of Hoover Dam in the 1930s drew thousands to work on the gargantuan project and Nellis Air Force Base was built nearby in 1940. After a brief flirtation with gambling laws so strict that flipping a coin for the price of a drink was a crime, Nevada legalized gambling in 1931. With the opening of Bugsy Siegel's Flamingo Hotel in 1946, Las Vegas embarked on the path to becoming the phenomenon it is today.

Steve Wynn opened Las Vegas' first mega-resort, The Mirage in 1989, heralding the transition from downtown casinos to "The Strip." Downtown properties continue to suffer from this change, but the city works to reverse the trend, enacting zoning changes allowing bars to be closer together, opening the World Market Center, intended to be the country's pre-eminent furniture market, and creating a center for the performing arts along with residential and business development.