Las Vegas: Historic Moulin Rouge Sold to Australian Investment Firm
An Australia-based buyer has bought the land where the Las Vegas’ first racially integrated hotel-casino used to sit.
Attorney Josh Reid represents BBC Capital, the company that bought the long-abandoned lot. He said the deal is fresh and plans for it are not set in stone. But community members said they hope the history of the land is preserved in some way.
“At that time, African Americans could not go into the front doors of places like the Sands, the Dunes, the Desert Inn,” said Claytee White, director of the Oral History Research Center at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. “You could go into a back door if you were a maid, or if you were an entertainer. You could go in to entertain those crowds that just adored you. But you could not walk in the front door.”
After performing, these entertainers would stay in a boarding house on the West Side. White says that all changed after the Moulin Rouge was built in 1954.
“It meant that African Americans had a casino that was integrated, as plush and upscale as any of those on the Las Vegas Strip,” she said. “The entertainers now had a decent place to live. It was very important in the evolution African-American community. The evolution toward equality.”
After just six months of being open, the casino closed in 1955.
“Even though it was short lived, it still had such a significance in the community,” said Ramon Savoy, former publisher of the Las Vegas Sentinel-Voice, Nevada’s only weekly Black publication. During his time in Las Vegas, Savoy has seen a lot happen with the site.
“There have been so many individuals and groups that have come to try to get and revise this property, and a lot of it fell flat,” Savoy said. “They weren’t able to follow through for whatever reason.”
He said he has high hopes for what the new buyers will do with the space.
“I hope they do enough study to understand what this community can support for there to be a thriving business,” Savoy said.
White said she wants the company to make use of the gaming license that comes with the property.
“People make tons of money with gaming in Nevada,” White said. “So why not allow someone in the African American community, that loves that community to earn some of those dollars?”
