El Rancho Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, Version 6, Triblend Tee

Venue Description

El Rancho Vegas was a hotel and casino at the north end of the Las Vegas Strip in Winchester, Nevada. It opened on April 3, 1941, as the first resort on the Strip, targeting travelers from Los Angeles. Designed by Wayne McAllister, it featured 65 rooms in cottage bungalows with an Old West theme. Its success led to the development of more resorts on what was then known as Highway 91. The El Rancho Vegas popularized the all-you-can-eat buffet concept in Las Vegas, which remains popular to this day. Ownership changed multiple times over the years until a devastating fire on June 17, 1960, which destroyed the main building and led to El Rancho Vegas’s permanent closure, even though the cottages themselves remained intact. After being sold to Howard Hughes in 1970, the site remained vacant and unused for years. The land, which once housed El Rancho Vegas and The Algiers, is now home to the Fontainebleau Las Vegas resort and casino.