By now we all know the myth.  Benjamin Siegel, looking a great deal like Warren Beatty, drives up a dusty highway into Downtown Las Vegas.  Not liking the dust, the crowd or the frontier architecture, he takes a ride back out of town.  He stops off the dust, empty  highway and has a fever dream.  He announces to Virginia Hill, looking a great deal like Annette Bening, that here is where he will build the world's greatest hotel, The Fabulous Flamingo.

It's a pivotal moment in the film "Bugsy" but the reality is that it is a myth. 

Truth:  The El Rancho Vegas and the The Last Frontier Hotel were both doing good business on that same stretch of dusty highway before the Flamingo was even a thought.

Truth: The Flamingo Hotel was already under construction and was the brainchild of Hollywood publisher and nightclub entrepreneur, Billy Wilkerson.   Wilkerson published the Hollywood Reporter and had a string of night-clubs in Los Angeles, including Ciro's (where the Comedy Store is today).  He had also had a wicked gambling habit.  His friends Howard Hughes and movie mogul, Joe Schenck suggested that Wilkerson build a casino and "own" the house.

He saw the potential of  what would be come the Famous Las Vegas Strip and wanting to be different from the other two hotels already doing business, he proposed a resort hotel that would cater to the Hollywood crowd that he knew and catered to in Los Angeles.  It would be a sophisticated carpet joint where the stars would want to come, play and gamble. 

In 1945, Wilkerson purchased 33 acres of property on the east side of Highway 91.  He purchased the land from Margaret Folsom who had, in turn, purchased the property from Las Vegas pioneers, Charles and Delphina Squires.  "Pop" Squires had originally paid $288.75 for the property. Wilkerson paid $84,000 for the same 33 acres. (Don't you wish you had a time machine?)

The land was situated just a little further south than the other two existing properties on the west side of the highway.  Wilkerson's resort would be the first one that tourists driving up the highway would see.

He hired the architect that had built Ciro's, George Vernon Russell and interior designer, Tom Douglas.  Wilkerson envisioned a casino, a Parisian themed showroom, nightclub, athletic club, steam rooms, hotel rooms and award winning restaurant that would hire European chefs.  Wilkerson's other big idea, the entire place would be air-conditioned.  He also envisioned retail stores that would sell high-end jewelry and clothing, a suite of bungalows that would cater to his high-rolling guests and a golf course.

Wilkerson wanted his resort to be bigger than the other two hotels, so he planned for 250 rooms.  The El Rancho Vegas at the time had 110 rooms and the Last Frontier had 107 rooms.  This was pushing the ante up big time. 

It was Billy Wilkerson who directed that there be no windows and no clocks on the walls.  His floor plan required that guests walk through the casino to get to the registration desk.  Wilkerson loved exotic birds and he adopted a tall, lanky pink bird as the logo for his new resort, The Flamingo. 

Myth:  Siegel named the hotel The Flamingo after Virginia Hill's legs. 

With a budget of $1.2 million, construction began in November 1945.  Wilkerson had a loan of $600,000 from Bank of America and another $200,000 from his friend Howard Hughes.   Wilkerson took to playing craps in an attempt to win the remaining funds needed to build his dream resort.  Unfortunately, Lady Luck was not riding with Billy Wilkerson that night.  Instead of winning, he lost more than $200,000.  Despondent over the loss, he (some would say foolishly) accepted an offer of $1 million from New York underworld figure, Harry Rothberg.

Rothberg's underworld partners included Meyer Lansky, Gus Greenbaum, Moe Sedway and Lansky's childhood friend, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel.   They all became silent partners in Wilkerson's resort hotel.

Wilkerson and Siegel had been friendly since the 1930s.  They had gotten to know one another in Los Angeles.  Siegel was a frequent guest at Ciro's.  He very much wanted to break into the movies and hanging out with friends and stars at Ciro's was one to get mentioned in the trades.  Since they got along, Siegel and Wilkerson worked together overseeing the daily construction of the resort hotel.  Wilkerson knew of Siegel's underworld ties and of his reputation.  Siegel moved quickly to take over exclusive control of the property.  Wilkerson agreed and Richard Stadelman, an architect from Los Angeles was brought in and Del Webb was hired to be the general contractor.

Resentment began to build between the two and, with Lansky's blessing, Siegel forced Wilkerson to give up creative control of the property and only remain as a shareholder.  Wilkerson at the time owned 48% of the stock according to his son, WR Wilkerson.  Siegel's first move was to fire Russell and Douglas and turn the work over to Stadelman.  In 1946, Siegel formed the Nevada Projects Corporation and appointed himself president.

There was a housing shortage in Post-War America and building materials were scarce and at a premium.  Siegel did not have Bill Moore's and RW Griffith's imagination in dealing with the situation.  Where Moore and Griffith had bought mines and diary farms, Siegel preferred to throw money at the problem.  He went to San Francisco and somehow persuaded officials to let him have scarce building materials.  This, in turn, caught the eye of the FBI and they secretly began to monitor Siegel's actions.  The Feds were convinced that bribery had taken place. 

Siegel continued to throw money at the materials shortage problem.  He flew in carpenters and laborers and paid them top dollar a day.  Not happy with the plans, he continued to make changes even after construction had begun.  The Boiler Room and Kitchen were rebuilt because he was unhappy with the final results.   

He scaled back the number of rooms to 93 and wanted separate sewer lines for each room.  He often bought material on the black market and paid top dollar for it.  Because he kept making changes, the project was soon awash in $1 million worth of overruns.  Siegel sold $1 million of stock in Nevada Corporations to Lansky, Wilkerson and anyone who would buy in.  Long-time residents talk about the profiteering that went on at the construction site.  Siegel would buy the material and have it delivered only to have it stolen from the construction site.  He would, unwittingly some believe, buy back the material once the theft had been discovered.  Lansky and others came to believe that Siegel was behind the thefts and that more was going into Siegel's back pocket than was being spent on the Flamingo.

Siegel finally forced Billy Wilkerson to sign over his stocks in the hotel and Wilkerson fled to Paris.  However, Billy Wilkerson did not give up so easily. 

The Flamingo opened on Dec. 26, 1946.  The hotel featured 105 rooms.  In the Showroom, Jimmy Durante, Xavier Cugat and his Orchestra and Rose Marie were the head liners.  Despite a winter storm that including rain, thunder and lightening, some of Siegel's friends such as George Raft, Sonny Tufts and others braved the storm and were in the audience.

Besides the Hotel and Casino, Siegel's Flamingo featured a trapshooting range, a nine-hole golf course, tennis, squash and badminton courts.  The landscaping was lavish by Las Vegas standards of the day.  The male staff were required to  wear tuxedos.  It was the most opulent hotel built and Las Vegans were eager to check the carpet joint out.  Siegel's attorney, Louie Weiner, said years later that Siegel's intentions was to build a resort for the Hollywood crowd and to include enough diversions so that when they lost at the tables they would still feel they were getting their money's worth.

The bad weather forced many of the invited guests from Hollywood and New York to send their regrets.  The heralded Grand Opening that Siegel had so meticulously planned was being called a flop.  To make matters worse, the casino  lost over $300,000 the first two weeks to winning gamblers.

According the Hollywood Reporter bio on founder Billy Wilkerson, Wilkerson took out an ad in the Hollywood Reporter and flaunted Siegel's cost overruns and irresponsible behavior. 

Locals who attended the grand opening went home and told their friends about the opulent hotel where men were required to wear jacket and tie or,  more preferably, a tuxedo and women were required to wear evening gowns.  For a small community like Las Vegas where the prevailing attitude was still "the old west in modern splendor" this was much too formal for many locals.

The high overhead costs, the few customers and the mounting construction costs on the remaining, unfinished hotel rooms, forced Siegel to close the Flamingo.  Cost overruns were rumored to be as high as $4 million.  Siegel began borrowing money from anyone who would loan it to him.  He hired a New York lawyer, Hank Greenspun (who would later start the Las Vegas Sun newspaper) as his publicist.

Siegel planned on reopening the hotel in March, 1947.  The hotel rooms were completed without further interference and the second opening of the hotel was more of a success than the first.  The Hollywood crowd came to see "Ben's" new resort and many of them liked what they saw.

The Flamingo included bingo as a way to lure the locals back.  In less than two months, the hotel was showing a profit.  However, for Siegel it was not enough.  His investors, tired of seeing an endless money pit, wanted to start seeing a faster return on their dollars.  A private meeting was called in Havana that was overseen by expatriate mobster,  Charles "Lucky" Luciano.  When Siegel heard about the meeting, he flew to Havana and met personally with Luciano.  Luciano demanded that Siegel start paying the investment back.  Siegel, enraged, lost his famous temper and walked out.

Unbeknownst to Siegel his mob investors and friends had had enough.  A hit was ordered on the charismatic gangster who had come up the hard way with his pal, Meyer Lansky in the Bugs and Meyer gang on the streets of New York.  Siegel was killed on June 20th, 1947 while sitting on the sofa in the living room of Virginia Hill's Beverly Hills home.  A shooter hid in the rose bushes outside and then blasted nine bullets into Siegel, putting one of the famed gangster's blue eyes out.  Siegel's friend, Al Smiley, sitting across the room, was unharmed.

At the same time that Benjamin Siegel was finding out that money means more than blood to his mob friends, Moe Sedway, Gus Greenbaum and Morris Rosen were walking into the Flamingo's casino and seizing control of the hotel.  Peg Crockett's husband, George, the founder of local Alamo Airways, was there that evening and described to her how the change of management occurred without a word of anger or any violence. 

When word of Siegel's murder hit the news wires the town of Las Vegas figured prominently in all the articles written about the mobster/hotel owner.  It was the kind of advertising that the up-and-coming town needed and it would reap the benefits from for years to come. 

Rosen began putting the necessary money together to buy the property from Siegel's Nevada Projects Corporation company.  In short order Rosen raised $3.9 million and bought the Flamingo.  Hidden financial partners  in the hotel were many well-known mob figures including Meyer Lansky.

Renamed the Fabulous Flamingo, the gaming license was issued to Sanford Adler who served as manager and front man.  In 1948, Greenbaum took over the day to day running of the hotel.  Within the year, the Fabulous Flamingo was showing a $4 million profit.

But in some ways, Siegel had the last laugh on all of us.  Diane Sawyer called him "the man who built Las Vegas" (which must have come as a surprise to the people who were living here and turning the small town into the Entertainment Capital of the World), various books, magazines and newspaper articles all link Siegel to the Post-War future of Las Vegas. 

Benjamin Siegel

The Early Years

Ben Siegel and actor, George Raft

Billy Wilkerson, The Flamingo Hotel was his idea

Siegel's girlfriend, Virginia Hill

Flamingo under Construction

   The original Flamingo Hotel

Flamingo Opening Night Invitation

All that is left to remind us of Siegel's connection to the Flamingo Hotel 

Thanks to UNLV's Special Collections for letting us these images.