Las Vegas

30.12.97,North Las Vegas, Clark County
Not much to do in a cultural way, but its a nice town i guess says one of the guys working in the only internet cafe, the Cybercity Cafe, in Las Vegas. He has been living here for some years now, so he must know. Actually most people in the city didnt grow up in it, they moved here from somewhere else. In 1855 the Las Vegas Spring was settled by Mormon missionaries and 1856 they moved off again after the community fell apart over a dispute about mining lead which was found near here. A man named Gass bought the spring and mine and called it Las Vegas Ranch. Nothing much happend until 1929 when 30 miles away construction for the Hoover Dam began. When gambling was legalized and divorce residency had been brought down to 6 weeks the first tourists and unhappy couples came to the mostly empty state of Nevada, which was exactly what the state government had hoped for.
At this point Las Vegas had a population of about 4500. After the war and the first big advertising campaigns, which had made gambling socially and economically acceptable, 8500 people were living in the city. Thanks to the many mobsters, including the famous gangster Bugsy Siegel, who decided to move to the relaxed Las Vegas and open the Flamingo Hotel, the casino and glamour scene exploded in the 50愀, bringing masses of bored Californians to town. In the 60愀 the whole thing cooled down, Bugsy had been shot, the corrupt politicians had to find a way of cleaning up the casino scene and polish up the image so tourists could lose their money honestly again. Now Las Vegas has a population of well over 550 000, and has outgrown the pure gambling, whorehouse and party town image. Many people seem to be coming here from all over the United States to start "A New Life" in the middle of the desert, houses being cheap, smoking being allowed in restaurants and sun shining all year round. There is the University of Las Vegas, attracting many young people aswell and the chances of finding a job are a lot bigger than in Los Angeles, or at least that is what they say...
What makes this city so interesting in the context the project is on the one side its representation of the desire to prosper and on the other the rather unique situtation of a town growing from a totally artificial construct that was made for tourists into a real place with real people. This is where our research starts, with some people. We talked to Larry of Hahns Surplus about their mining project, a quest for an underground river of vast dimensions. The sedate of this river is told to contain large quantities of gold, and they believe to be very close to finding it. Since the project is in its last stages, Larry wouldnt really discuss the details - when its done we will all hear about it, together with the rest of world, he promised. In this context we will also try to find some more information about a man from Germany, whose name was Phillip Deidesheimer. He developed maybe the most important tool for big scale mining in deep lodes - a modular system to support tunnels. This was around 1860, so in order to find out more about Deidesheimer and his invention we will researching in the numerous mining musuems for the next two weeks... latest update, 3.1.98 As we were strolling home from a rather mediocre saturday evening on the Strip, we came across the latest census evaluations - Las Vegas has grown 40.9% from 1990 to 1996, which is the highest percentage in the United States (which had a overall growth of 6,7%) according to the daily newspaper USA today. The mayor, Micheal McDonald is quoted saying "I honestly never expected so many people living in our valley. Our biggest problem will be maintaining the quality of life." Which apparently means that the water supply is getting thin, and schools are packed. This amazing growth seems to be mainly due to the booming casino business.

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