Linda's Lake Powell Condos

 

Las Vegas

 

Fremont Street Las Vegas	Top of Stratosphere

Directions to Lake Powell from Las Vegas

Take Interstate 15 North to St. George, Utah
Take Hwy. 9 to Hurricane
Take either Hwy 59 or 9 to Kanab
Then take 89 to Lake Powell
About 281 Miles and about 41/2 hours with lots of beautiful country in between.

Pam, Elissa, Joey at Mirage	Battle reenactment at Treasure Island

BRIEF HISTORY OF LAS VEGAS

Las Vegas is a relatively young town but its history can be traced
all the way back to 1829, when Antonio Armijo lead a party of 60 on
the Old Spanish Trail to Los Angeles. While the caravan camped about
100 miles northeast of the present site of Las Vegas, a scouting
party set out to look for water. Rafael Rivera, a young Mexican
scout who left the main party and headed due west over the
unexploreddesert, discovered an oasis. The abundance of artesian
spring water he found here shortened the Spanish trail to Los
Angeles by allowing travelers to cut directly through rather than
around, the vast desert. Spanish traders who used this route were
thankful for the shortened trip and they named this convenient
desert oasis Las Vegas Spanish for "the Meadows".

John C. Fremont was the next visitor to the Las Vegas Springs. In
1844 he led one of his many explorations to the Far West. He is
still remembered today and his name graces one of the most
spectacular streets in Las Vegas, Fremont Street, located downtown.

Ten years later Mormon settlers were sent by Brigham Young from Salt
Lake City to colonize the valley. They built a 150 square foot adobe
brick fort, part of which still stands today as the oldest structure
in Las Vegas and is appropriately named the Mormon Fort. The Mormons
spent two years here before the harsh desert defeated their
ambitions. By 1857 the fort was abandoned.

Things really didn't start happening for Las Vegas until 1904, when
the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad laid its tracks
through the Las Vegas Valley. The Railroad purchased prime land,
bought the water rights and surveyed a town site for its railroad
servicing and repair facilities. In 1905, the railroad held an
auction and sold 700 lots. Las Vegas became a small watering stop
with a few
hotels, stores, a saloon and a few thousand residents. When the
government appropriated $165 million for the
Boulder Canyon Project in 1928, Las Vegas received its first wave of
residents. Thousands of Depression weary job seekers came to help
build the world's largest gravity dam, 40 miles from Las Vegas, now
named Hoover Dam.
In 1931, construction of the dam began and the Governor of Nevada,
Fred Balzar, approved the "wide open" gambling bill that had been
introduced by a Winnemucca rancher, Assemblyman Phil Tobin. Up until
that time gambling was outlawed in Nevada.

As people flocked to the area to work on the Boulder Dam Project the
federal government didn't want the workers to be distracted by the
temptations of Las Vegas so they created a separate government town
to house them, Boulder City. Gambling was illegal in Boulder City
and it still remains the only community in Nevada where gambling is
against the law.

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