A promising student at school, he went to university to study medicine. ![]() ![]() He was born in 1890 in Nashville, Tennessee. It soon reopened - more successfully - and helped change the face of Las Vegas.įamed mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel is credited with bringing elegance to the fledgling Las Vegas strip with his opening of the Flamingo Hotel on December 26, 1946.Īlthough Siegel tends to get a lot of the credit, it was Wilkerson who had the original vision. One very vocal silent partner who was there for the opening was Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, who was so disappointed with the hotel’s performance he shut it down after two weeks. It was a particularly nervous time for Wilkerson given that his silent partners were mobsters. The hotel’s owner Billy Wilkerson watched in dismay as his new venture started to lose thousands of dollars as the crowds stayed away in the wake of the flop opening night. Of the guests who turned up, most couldn’t get a room since the hotel wasn’t actually finished, so they went elsewhere to gamble. Although some of the A-list Hollywood actors turned up, such as George Raft and Jimmy Durante, who was there to perform songs with the Xavier Cugat big band, most were unable to make it because a huge rainstorm grounded planes out of California. I t was to be the social occasion of the year, the grand opening of the glitziest hotel in the burgeoning city of Las Vegas on December 26, 1946.
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