“That’s a little boutique hotel these days, but it was a major step for Las Vegas back then. “We don’t think much of it now, but at the time, 500 rooms was a huge hotel,” Hall-Patton said.
He said he sees the buildout of the hotel in the early 1970s as a sort of coming of age for Las Vegas. Mark Hall-Patton, the recently retired Clark County museum director, was a junior in high school when the Plaza was built. When the hotel now known as the Plaza opened its doors in 1971, it was dubbed the largest in the world with more than 500 rooms. (Erik Verduzco / Las Vegas Review-Journal) before the mega skyscrapers that line Las Vegas Boulevard, the LED canopy above Fremont Street and the endless suburbs stretching far beyond downtown, the hotel then known as the Union Plaza stood firmly at the heart of Sin City.įriday marks the 50th anniversary of the historic hotel-casino’s grand opening at 1 N. The Plaza hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Thursday, July 1, 2021.
