Since the founding of Las Vegas in 1905, Fremont Street has been the town’s true center. Until the late 1960s, the Union Pacific rail terminal at Fremont and Main delivered passengers to the city’s main business district each day.

As can be seen in this undated photograph, Fremont Street was more than casinos and T-shirt shops in the 1940s and 1950s: The gambling halls are side-by-side with a dentist’s office, lunch counters and drug stores.  We are looking east from the middle of Fremont and First sometime before Vegas Vic became the iconic sign of the casino center.

It’s been more than a decade since this section of Fremont Street was closed to pedestrian traffic, and the thought of driving up to the front door of the Golden Nugget might strike some people today as strange. But when this photograph was taken, you could do just that.

There are some interesting historical notes, as well: The Las Vegas Club seen here on the south side of the street was the predecessor of today’s casino, which is on the north side.  The Monte Carlo Club is the site of the small slot casino La Bayou and, back in 1931, was the Northern Club, one of the original four gambling halls of Las Vegas.

It’s just another reminder that no matter how much things change, they often remain the same.

SOURCE: Manos Collection, UNLV Special Collection

By David Schwartz

David G. Schwartz an Atlantic City native and the director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. He is the author of Roll the Bones: The History of Gambling. His web site can be viewed at www.dieiscast.com.