{"id":319565,"date":"2024-05-09T13:09:45","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T18:09:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=319565"},"modified":"2024-09-09T10:02:01","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T15:02:01","slug":"lost-vegas-block-16-las-vegas-only-red-light-district","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-block-16-las-vegas-only-red-light-district\/","title":{"rendered":"LOST VEGAS: Block 16, Sin City’s Only Official Red-Light District"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google \u201cBlock 16\u201d and \u201cLas Vegas\u201d and you may think this article is about an expensive food hall at the Cosmopolitan on the Strip. It is<\/em> about the human appetite for expensive vices, but food isn\u2019t among them.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Two scandalously attired (at least for the late 1930s) women shade themselves under the awning of the Arizona Club, a legal saloon and bordello on Block 16. (Image: UNLV Special Collections)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Exactly how and when Las Vegas first got the nickname \u201cSin City\u201d is up for debate. However, Block 16 was most certainly where.<\/em><\/p>\n

When the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad auctioned off the parcels of its land that became Las Vegas on May 15, 1905, they were gridded out into 40 blocks. Each consisted of 32 lots, 25 by 140 feet, fronted by an 80-foot-wide street and bisected by a 20-foot-wide alley.<\/p>\n

Block 16, located on First Street between Ogden and Stewart avenues, was designated as the only place (outside of hotels) where alcohol could legally be sold.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Gambling and prostitution quickly joined gin consumption in Las Vegas\u2019 only official red-light district, where six hotels and 11 saloons opened to cater to all three demands in varying degrees.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Block 16, just after Las Vegas became a city, consisted of the Gem, Arizona Club, Red Onion Club, and the Arcade. These were saloons that served 10-cent shots. Most also hosted poker, roulette, and — inside an office or in a shack or two out back — prostitution. (Image: UNLV Special Collections)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe Queen of Block 16\u201d was the nickname bestowed on the classier Arizona Club. With its $20K mahogany bar, it was the first casino in Las Vegas, and also the first casino to build its own “hotel.” (More on why “hotel” appears in quotes in a bit.)<\/p>\n

In 1909, unbeknownst to all but students of Las Vegas history, gambling was outlawed in Nevada. In 1920, the 18th Amendment then prohibited the sale of alcohol across the US.<\/a> And though neither law would be repealed until the 1930s, there was little trouble finding games of chance or booze on Block 16 throughout this period.<\/p>\n

Vice Principles<\/h2>\n

Counterintuitively, sex was the most consistently legal vice available on Block 16. Though prostitution is illegal<\/a> in today\u2019s Las Vegas, and everywhere else in Clark County, this wasn’t the case during most of the first half of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Block 16, as it appears sometime in the 1910s, sees the debut of the Arizona Club\u2019s second-floor \u201chotel.\u201d (Image: UNLV Special Collections)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In fact, brothels in Block 16 were only illegal if their owners failed to pay their $500 annual license fees to the city, or any of the prostitutes skipped their required weekly medical exams.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s why the Arizona Club\u2019s \u201chotel\u201d was really a second story of small rooms exclusively for the use of working women and their gentlemen.<\/p>\n

When passenger trains pulled into Las Vegas back then, their stops lasted 45 minutes, which was long enough for a \u201cquickie.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEach of those places had a madam as the operator,\u201d former Las Vegas city manager George L. Ullom told Jamie Coughtry for the author\u2019s 1989 UNLV oral history project, \u201cPolitics and Development in Las Vegas, 1930s-1970s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t suppose that there were over 40 girls involved,\u201d Ullom said. \u201cIn the warmer months, the girls would stand out in front of the place to whistle at a possible customer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Ullom denied ever being one of those customers, he said he recalled Block 16 \u201cvery well as a small child and then later as an adult, when I was a policeman.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hookers and Blowback<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Ironically, the re-legalization of Las Vegas gambling in 1931 galvanized the operators of the town\u2019s bordello-less casinos against prostitution, which they considered competition for their customers’ money and time.<\/p>\n

But the death warrant for Block 16 was signed by President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, after the US entered WWII. The May Act banned prostitution near military bases, leaving the determination of \u201cnear\u201d up to base commanders.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Today, the area once known as Block 16 is mostly occupied by the California Hotel & Casino and a parking garage behind Binion’s across First Street. The marker in the foreground informs passersby of the block’s history. (Image: hmdb.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following passage of this new law, the Army Air Corps issued a stern warning to Las Vegas’ city\u2019s commissioners: ban prostitution on Block 16 or all of Las Vegas will be declared off limits to servicemen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Earlier that same year, Nellis Air Force Base had opened 8 miles away, as the Las Vegas Army Air Field, and soldiers\u00a0 with off-duty passes crowded Block 16 by the hundreds every night.<\/p>\n

The city commission caved, voting to revoke the liquor and gambling licenses of all saloons and hotels that refused to quit their bordello-ing.<\/p>\n

And it was with that order that Las Vegas police chief Frank Wait resigned. (He thought Las Vegas would be better off with legal prostitution than illegal streetwalkers.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went down and informed them all and closed them up,\u201d said Ullom, who was among the police officers tasked with enforcing the new ordinance. \u201cThe day after the closing, it seems to me that there were two people that we brought out and took down and arrested, and that was the end of it.”<\/p>\n

\n

Though the May Act was lifted in 1948, Las Vegas officially cracked down on any bordello that reopened on Block 16, staging a series of raids in the early \u201950s justified by the \u201cpublic nuisance\u201d that prostitution presented. (Click here<\/a> to read about the history of legal prostitution elsewhere in Nevada.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

By later that decade, the majority of the saloons\/bordellos on Block 16 had closed and were demolished.<\/p>\n

“Most of these girls disappeared,\u201d Ullom recalled, \u201cbut then it was open field for the hustlers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, more than 70 years later, the area is occupied by the California Hotel & Casino and a parking garage for Binion’s. And though the name “Block 16” still registers with tourists, it’s mostly as the Las Vegas home of Hattie B’s Hot Chicken.<\/p>\n

\u201cLost Vegas\u201d is an occasional\u00a0Casino.org<\/em>\u00a0series spotlighting Las Vegas\u2019 forgotten history.\u00a0Click here<\/a>\u00a0to read other entries in the series. Think you know a good Vegas story lost to history? Email corey@casino.org.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google \u201cBlock 16\u201d and \u201cLas Vegas\u201d and you may think this article is about an expensive food hall at the Cosmopolitan on the Strip. It is about the human appetite for expensive vices, but food isn\u2019t among them. Exactly how and when Las Vegas first got the nickname \u201cSin City\u201d is up for debate. However, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":319569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,81886],"tags":[85374,13766,13628,82769,23,82757,90830,86050,90831],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nLOST VEGAS: Block 16, Sin City's Only Official Red-Light District - Casino.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Google \u201cBlock 16\u201d and \u201cLas Vegas\u201d and you may think this article is about an expensive food hall at the Cosmopolitan on the Strip. 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It is about the human\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-block-16-las-vegas-only-red-light-district\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-05-09T18:09:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-09T15:02:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/block-16-women-sitting-outside-arizona-club-unlv-special-collection.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1111\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Corey Levitan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Corey Levitan\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-block-16-las-vegas-only-red-light-district\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-block-16-las-vegas-only-red-light-district\/\",\"name\":\"LOST VEGAS: Block 16, Sin City's Only Official Red-Light District - Casino.org\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-block-16-las-vegas-only-red-light-district\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/lost-vegas-block-16-las-vegas-only-red-light-district\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/block-16-women-sitting-outside-arizona-club-unlv-special-collection.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-05-09T18:09:45+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-09-09T15:02:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/281fd7b5480c9afb75e84ffb75039f09\"},\"description\":\"Google \u201cBlock 16\u201d and \u201cLas Vegas\u201d and you may think this article is about an expensive food hall at the Cosmopolitan on the Strip. 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