My mother worked for Greyhound so we took a lot of trips all around the West. We stayed at the Fremont, The Mint and the Stardust around this time. Just how I remember it. Always remember the heat still hanging around at midnight. We saw Dean Martin with Count Basie at The Sands. A different era.
So lucky to have Dean Martin live and see this back then. It looks like a whole other universe. This is a time that was very unique and I dont see it coming back sadly
A true walk back in time. I had forgotten exactly the location of the Imperial Motel, where I stayed in 1967, now thanks to you I know that it was a block or two north of the Sands Hotel. Then the recordings downtown show the locations of the old casinos, hard to imagine since they are all gone. Even saw Trader Bll's. Just think, seeing the construction of the DUNES hi-rise hotel. The Landmark and the old convention center. The entertainers on the marquees. We all all thankful to the person who had the foresight to film driving down the Strip. Also, note how well dressed everyone was then. Thank you sir and thumbs up
I can't even watch this anymore. Looking what world we live in in now compare to all these videos from the past makes me like giving up on everything, because nothing matters anymore. The glory and beauty is permanently gone.
This is awsome. This is my time period when I spent 2 and a 1/2 years living in Vegas. My first job was working at one of the first Mexican Restaurants in Vegas. It was called "The Macayo Vegas Mexican Food." I saw a lot of movie stars. One of my favorites was Harry James and Betty Grable and their two daughters. They came in almost every Wednesday night.
.....Macayo Vegas, ( as it became known as ) was still around up until around 2017 or 2018, I think. There may still be one location left in Vegas, they actually had 3 or 4 locations, over a number of years.
So true! I grew up in Vegas but left after I married in 06, tho my family still lives there I hadn't had a chance to visit since 13 and it was shock coming back in 20. I can't believe how built up the south is! There is barely any space between Vegas and enterprise! When I graduated in 02 enterprise was like visiting the moon, it was so empty.
Let me start by thanking you for sharing this awesome footage. I was born in 1968 and raised just West of Philadelphia. I moved out here in 1996 and can't get over how much it has changed since then but then I see this incredible footage before I was even a thought or an "oops". I remember in 1997 me and my girlfriend went out for a ride one evening and we ended up parking and sitting on a rock pile at the intersection of Tropicana and Rainbow. I don't think one car past us that night. At that time that was the edge of the city and now it's more like the middle of the city. Also in 1997, Hoover dam had a slow flow of water going over the spillway even with the metal gates slightly raised. You could feed fish on the Arizona side from the first parking lot with popcorn purchased in a small store that was located in the same parking lot. The store has been gone for some time now but so has the water that reached it. It looks like it dropped around 100ft since then but that's just a guess. I noticed in 1962 it was much higher than it is today, nearly 60 years later. This really made my night so I thank you again. Funny thing is that I, I'll call it stumbled upon this video. I wasn't searching for anything related to Vegas. I want to share this with others that I know will enjoy it as much as I did but it's 12:15AM. The nostalgia is heavy.
For those who may not know: approximate minute 14:45 that’s Scottie’s Castle in Death Valley, highly recommend if you ever get a chance to tour it, beautiful place
Classic video footage! I think that was the newlywed Griswalds in the station wagon, pulling into the convention center at 11:57. They probably were going to see The Beatles in concert but then realized they were a day late.
Sorry Ryan. I watched from the Bally's parking lot across the street from the Dunes when they imploded the hotel. Only a few hundred feet away, I watched the hotel pancake into itself. Incredible. But, the opening implosion before the main attraction of the hotel imploding surprised everybody when the first attraction was the implosion of the massive Dunes sign. Yeah, It would of been another great addition to The Sign Graveyard ... but instead the Dunes sign went out in eclectic Vegas style and fanfare and remains a favorite memory.
@@Ranger-BILLs-World also I forgot to mention my dad was there too... he watched the implosion. Also I wonder who the actor playing the “captain of the Britannia” was. So many unanswered questions since I first heard about it, despite the fact it happened almost 10 years before I was born...
I'm 67 yrs young and remember vividly visiting Las Vegas as a youngster. We drove at night to avoid the heat. My Dad would wake us up 50 miles before arriving. He said "look for the glowing lights on the horizon " We used to stay at the Bagdad Motel. Great pool! Remember 99° atop Sahara Hotel at midnight.
This is cool. I'd never heard of Scotty's Castle. Have to go there next trip. The "old" convention center is still the current one just greatly expanded. There are pictures inside of it when it started in the 50s, when it was half the size as shown. Now it's maybe 20 times the size. First time i ever went to Las Vegas in 1986 it looked a lot closer to the 1962 version than today's version. We drove down Fremont St, went to the strip and parked at the end where the Stratosphere is now and walked in 110 degree heat seemingly miles between each neighboring casino across the parking lots and bits of desert to get to the nice air conditioning. Been there and Reno many times since.
Thank you! Brings back great memories. Visited Vegas in 62 and 64 to play in the basketball state championships at UNLV (from northern NV). But unlike some commenters one thing was not great back then. It was my first experience with WHITE and BLACK restrooms (and lockers). Blew my mind when we (our team) saw it. We were assigned BLACK likely because half our players were native American.
I have or had relatives uncles, aunts, who all moved to Florida in 60s. When I moved to LV in 70s I saw them when they came to LV for a vacation. They all said if they knew how great LV was that they would of moved there instead of Florida.
Look how full Lake Meade was back then, and what it looks like now 2/3rds empty. I remember when I was kid and we had a trip to California in 1960, and came to Vegas, nothing like it is now.
Fantastic footage that's genuine. When I started watching, I wondered if Mamie Van Doren's name would make an appearance and sure enough there she was listed at the Riviera along with Dennis Day (search on RU-vid them singing You Make me Feel so Young together). That new MCM subdivision with show home looked amazing and would have been priced well because they were wanting to attract people to move there. So glad you posted this and made this film before the counterculture era took over, triggering rapidly changing tastes
All those old buildings were pure artwork just like the cars of the same era. It's a shame they demolished all of them ... I'm sure many were in ill repair but many were knocked down simply to update in the name of making money.
Great old casinos. These were the carpet joints the mob built. The cowboy casinos were sawdust joints but they modernized downtown . They buried the cheats in the desert.
This film never had sound - most 8mm film shot before 1965 did not have sound. Sound went mainstream after 1965 when super 8 film was released and even then most was silent until the 1970s.
Great video! Some of the best images of Fremont Street that I have seen after watching dozens of Las Vegas film clips on RU-vid. I especially love seeing the Mint featured prominently here; I was ten years old the first time I was in Las Vegas, and the Mint was one of the hotels I remember on Fremont Street (along with the Golden Nugget and the Four Queens). I noticed no hotel tower behind the Mint in this video; had it not been built in 1962?
