“With the development around it, it has always been seen as a place you could do something bigger,” Schwartz said.

It has traded hands in recent decades, seen as a site with potential for growth. Today, the site at the south end of the Strip is surrounded by megaresorts: the MGM Grand, Excalibur, New York-New York, Luxor and Mandalay Bay. Green noted Eddie Fischer was the opening-night headliner and said lion-and tiger-taming illusionists Siegfried & Roy got their Las Vegas start at the venue before ending up at The Mirage. It was home for nearly 50 years to the “Les Folies Bergere” - a glittery and feathery topless revue featuring quintessential Vegas showgirls until it closed in 2009. But it also had a significant non-mob phase,” Green said. “The Trop has a checkered history and a checkered past. Historian Michael Green said organized crime often had a hand in Tropicana operations, but observed that today it is corporate-owned. “It’s one of the most storied properties still open today.” “It was seen as a cut above other places and a little more intimate,” said David Schwartz, a gambling historian and former director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

The high-rise Stardust opened the following year, costing $8.5 million.

The Flamingo had been open for a decade, the Sahara for almost 15 years. When it opened with three stories and 300 rooms in 1957 at a cost of $15 million, it was described as the most expensive hotel-casino built in Las Vegas and dubbed the “Tiffany of the Strip.” The hotel has been operated in recent years as a DoubleTree by Hilton. It has two towers of 22 and 21 stories on a 35-acre (14-hectare) parcel at a Las Vegas Boulevard intersection with a major thoroughfare named for it.

The Tropicana Las Vegas opened in April 1957.

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