|
Downtown Las Vegas (commonly abbreviated as DTLV) is the central business district and historic center of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is the original townsite and was the gambling district of Las Vegas prior to the Strip, and the area still incorporates downtown gaming. As the urban core of the Las Vegas Valley, it features a variety of hotel and business highrises, cultural centers, historical buildings and government institutions, as well as residential and retail developments. Downtown is located in the center of the Las Vegas Valley and just north of the Las Vegas Strip, centered on Fremont Street, the Fremont Street Experience and Fremont East. The city defines the area as bounded by I-15 on the west, Washington Avenue on the north, Maryland Parkway on the east and Sahara Avenue on the south. ==History== Perhaps the earliest visitors to the Las Vegas area were nomadic Paleo-Indians, who traveled here 10,000 years ago, leaving behind petroglyphs. Anasazi and Paiute tribes came here at least 2,000 years ago. The area was named Las Vegas, which is Spanish for ''the meadows'', in the 1800s because it featured abundant wild grasses, as well as desert spring waters for westward travelers. The year 1844 marked the arrival of John C. Frémont, whose writings helped lure pioneers to the area. Downtown Las Vegas’ Fremont Street is named after him. Eleven years later, members of the LDS Church chose Las Vegas as the site to build a fort halfway between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where they would travel to gather supplies. The fort was abandoned several years afterward. The remainder of this fort can still be seen at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue at the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park. Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905, when 110 acres of land adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks were auctioned in what would become the downtown area. In 1911, Las Vegas was incorporated as a city. The year 1931 was a pivotal one for Las Vegas. At that time, Nevada legalized casino gambling and reduced residency requirements for divorce to six weeks. This year also witnessed the beginning of construction on nearby Hoover Dam. The influx of construction workers and their families helped Las Vegas avoid economic calamity during the Great Depression. It was completed in 1935. Following World War II, lavishly decorated hotels, gambling casinos and big-name entertainment became synonymous with Las Vegas. The 1950s saw the opening of the Moulin Rouge Hotel, the first racially integrated casino-hotel in Las Vegas. In 1951, the first atomic bomb detonation at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, occurred. City residents and visitors were able to witness the mushroom clouds until 1963, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty required that nuclear tests be moved underground. During the 1960s, corporations and business powerhouses such as Howard Hughes were building and buying hotel-casino properties. Gambling was referred to as "gaming," which transitioned into legitimate business. In 1989, entrepreneur Steve Wynn changed the face of the Las Vegas gaming industry by opening up The Mirage, the Las Vegas Strip’s first mega-casino resort. This strengthened the pull of visitors away from the downtown area. In 1995, the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas’ downtown area was opened. This canopied, five-block area features 12.5 million LED lights and 550,000 watts of sound from dusk until midnight during shows held on the top of each hour. Due to years of revitalization efforts, 2012 was dubbed “The Year of Downtown.” Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of projects made their debut at this time. They included The Smith Center for the Performing Arts and DISCOVERY Children’s Museum, the Mob Museum, the Neon Museum, a new City Hall complex and renovations for a new Zappos.com corporate headquarters in the old City Hall building.〔http://www.lasvegasnevada.gov/factsstatistics/history.htm〕〔Downtown Las Vegas Visitors Guide 2014〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Downtown Las Vegas」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|