Don Laughlin — owner of the Riverside Resort Hotel & Casino and namesake of the Nevada townsfolk he created — died on Sunday. He was 92. According to an proclamation posted on his business’ Facebook page, Laughlin passed away peacefully, piece encircled by household members.
“Don touched many lives in our local community as easily as nationwide, and we infer how hard this tidings testament be for many,” the declaration read. “Especially our Riverside Resort family. Don River Laughlin was genuinely an astonishing adult male to process with and acquire from.”
Small Town, Big Dreams
Born May 4, 1931 in Owatonna, Minn., Laughlin initially worked inwards trapping, installing grey-market slot machines in the hunting lodges he visited as a $500/week position venture.
His high school day principal sum helped head the trend of his career by giving Laughlin an ultimatum — apply upward the illegal slot fraudulent scheme or lead school.
It’s not severe to speculation which he decided.
In 1952, Laughlin made his path to Las Vegas, where he bought his firstly casino, the 101 Club in Frederick North Las Vegas, ii years later.
But Las Vegas wouldn’t stick, thanks to a fatal aerial navigate inwards his buck private aircraft. The activate suggested to Laughlin a often to a lesser extent plundered gold mine near 100 miles south of Vegas on the Centennial State River, in the area where Nevada, California, and genus Arizona meet.
Vegas 2.0
By 1964, Laughlin deserted Vegas and purchased the southern hint of Nevada. Known since its founding in the 1940s as South Pointe, it was where Laughlin began building what he envisioned as his Vegas 2.0.
The shore included an abandoned eight-room motel and debar occupying 6.5 riverside acres. In 1966, Laughlin reopened the prop with a cassino sporting 12 slots, 2 tabularize games, and all-you-can-eat volaille dinners for 98 cents.
Eventually, it became became the Riverside Resort, which Laughlin owned and reportedly operated until his death. And South Pointe became the unincorporated William Clark County townspeople of Laughlin, which Laughlin always said was non his idea. (He claimed he wanted to call off it Riverside or maybe fifty-fifty Casino, Nev. But the post office dubbed it “Laughlin substation” and the call stuck.)
Laughlin, the town, sprouted a secondment casino, the Bobcat Club, in 1967, on the site of the electric current Golden Nugget Laughlin. Once the Monte Carlo followed a year later, a steady current of boats began shuttling funny observers from crosswise the Colorado River River in Bullhead City, Ariz., and Laughlin’s Vegas 2.0 had turn a reality.
Today, Laughlin, Nev. houses octet casino resorts and the Laughlin/Bullhead City International Airport.
A twirp from Nev. Gov. Joe Lombardo called Laughlin “an striking Nevadan” who testament “always be remembered for his pioneering spirit, ingenuity. and long-suffering impact.”
Laughlin was preceded inward expiry past his wife, Betty Laughlin, whom he married in 1953. She died in January 2022 at age 89. Plans for a memorial service of process are expected to follow announced shortly.
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