One of the cultures that have taken a big role in getting Vegas to where it is today is the Mob culture brought to the Town by Mr.Murder incorporated himself, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. After building a criminal Empire through Bootlegging, gambling, and heartless assassinations Bugsy decided to set up shop in Vegas opening the Flamingo Hotel. Although he died before the hotel reached its prime, his presence in town opened the door for other mobsters to invest in Vegas. By 1962 the Mob had about $300 million invested in the city. The money from organized crime went into building hotels on like the Sahara, and the New Frontier during the 1950s and 60s.

The history of the Mob is Vegas has largely been romanticized by Hollywood films like the Godfather, Godfather II, and Bugsy.

These films fueled the legends of Mobsters like Al Capone, and Meyers Lansky and fortified the town’s image as the last frontier.

The town cultural landscape has greatly changed from its first Census in 1910. Drawn to the town for the mining industry the town’s population consisted mostly of Irish, and Germans. The town also contained a small percentage of Southern Paiute Indians. In spite of the booming railroad industry, Vegas did not draw many individuals of Asian descent. At the time, only four Chinese people lived in the town, and only fourteen young Japanese immigrants. The town’s black population was also small. As they do today, Hispanics represented the largest minority group in Vegas at the time, comprising roughly 0.06% of the population. However, while today’s Hispanic in Vegas is extremely diverse with the non-Mexican Hispanics comprising 41.4% of the population, at the time vegas’ entire Hispanic population was comprised of 56 Mexicans.

The start of Boulder dam construction boosts the Las Vegas population to 5,100 in 1930. The majority of the immigrants were of European descent, although some African American, Asians, and Hispanics immigrated to Vegas as well. The rise of the Vegas Strip during the late 1940s and 1950s gradually altered Vegas’s demographics. In spite of the vast racial discrimination present in the town, the African American population nearly doubled over the course of the 20th Century because the economic opportunity was far better than it was in the south. However, the towns discriminatory nature forced African Americans established an ethnic enclave known as West Side near the city’s red light district. Between the 1960s and 70s, there was also a large influx of Hispanic immigrants along with a small percentage of Asian immigrants. The majority of the Hispanic immigrants of this time were Cubans from Havana. Later on in the late 1970s and Early 1980, turmoil in Central America resulted in an influx in immigration to Vegas in response to the states increased need for employees to fill positions in the Vast number of hotels built at the time.

Today Vegas is home to communities of people representing virtually every nation and has only one ethnic enclave dominated by African Americans Known as West Side.

Work Cited

Badertscher, Eric. “Las Vegas.” Let’s Take a Look at Nevada, Aug. 2018, p. 1. EBSCOhost, db03.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=14150258&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

“Bugsy Siegel.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 27 Apr. 2018, http://www.biography.com/people/bugsy-siegel-9542063.

Edwards, Jerome E. “The Peoples of Las Vegas: One City, Many Faces.” Journal of American Ethnic History, vol. 26, no. 1, 2006, p. 98+. World History Collection, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A413170538/PPWH?u=lincclin_bwcc&sid=PPWH&xid=94e1416b. Accessed 11 Feb. 2019

Gragg, Larry. “Las Vegas who built America’s playground? Larry Gragg digs beneath the glitzy surface of America’s ‘sin city’ to find out how this extravagant home of gambling and glamour came into being.” History Today, Feb. 2007, p. 51+. World History Collection, http://link.galegroup.com.db03.linccweb.org/apps/doc/A159921708/PPWH?u=lincclin_bwcc&sid=PPWH&xid=4460bd2a. Accessed 12 Feb. 2019.

“Las Vegas and the Mob.” History Magazine, vol. 17, no. 1, Oct. 2015, pp. 8–14. EBSCOhost, db03.linccweb.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=khh&AN=110028413&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Zobell, Charles. “Las Vegas.” World Book Advanced, World Book, 2019,www-worldbookonline-com.db03.linccweb.org/advanced/article?id=ar314060. Accessed 11 Feb. 2019.