Las Vegas was named by Spaniards in the Antonio Armijo party, who used the water in the area while heading north and west along the Old Spanish Trail from Texas.

In the 1800s, areas of the Las Vegas Valley contained artesian wells that supported extensive green areas or meadows (vegas in Spanish), hence the name Las Vegas. John C. Frémont traveled into the Las Vegas Valley on May 3, 1844, while it was still part of Mexico.

He was a leader of a group of scientists, scouts and observers for the United States Army Corps of Engineers. On May 10, 1855, following annexation by the United States, Brigham Young assigned 30 missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints led by William Bringhurst to the area to convert the Paiute Indian population to Mormonism.

A fort was built near the current downtown area, serving as a stopover for travelers along the "Mormon Corridor" between Salt Lake and the briefly thriving colony of "saints" at San Bernardino, California. However, Mormons abandoned Las Vegas in 1857.

Las Vegas was established as a railroad town on May 15, 1905, when 110 acres (44.5 ha) owned by Montana Senator William A. Clark's San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, was auctioned off in what is now downtown Las Vegas.

Las Vegas was part of Lincoln County until 1909 when it became part of the newly established Clark County.
The St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church near 4th and Bridger in downtown was founded in 1910.Las Vegas became an incorporated city on March 16, 1911.

Gambling was legalized in the city on March 19, 1931. On December 26, 1946, Bugsy Siegel's opened the infamous Flamingo Hotel in Paradise on what would later become the Las Vegas Strip.

The Hoover Dam was completed on October 9, 1936 outside of Boulder City and above ground nuclear testing was conducted at the Nevada Test Site in Nye County from 1951 to 1962.

The era of megaresort casinos in Clark County began on November 22, 1989, with the opening of The Mirage.

Economic history

Las Vegas started as a stopover on the pioneer trails to the west, and became a popular railroad town in the early 1900s.

It was a staging point for all the mines in the surrounding area, especially those around the town of Bullfrog, that shipped their goods out to the rest of the country.

With the proliferation of the railroads, Las Vegas became less important, but the completion of the nearby Hoover Dam in 1935 resulted in a substantial growth in tourism, which, along with the legalization of gambling in 1931, led to the advent of the casino-hotels for which Las Vegas is famous.

The city owes almost all its current status and reputation to American organized crime. All of the original large casinos were managed or at least funded under mob figures Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Meyer Lansky.

The constant stream of tourist dollars from the hotels and casinos was augmented by a new source of federal money.
This money came from the establishment of what is now Nellis Air Force Base. The influx of military personnel and casino job-hunters helped start a land building boom which still goes on today.

Although the city's gambling economy continues to expand, in 2006 gambling revenues in the Macau Special Administrative Region in the People's Republic of China surpassed those in Las Vegas, making Macau the largest gambling center in the world. With revenues in excess of $10 billion for 2007, Macau is poised to surpass the entire state of Nevada in gambling revenues.

Due to the gambling boom in Macau, many traditional Las Vegas casino developers, such as Steve Wynn, are pursuing multi-billion dollar projects in its expanding market. There is no evidence as of yet to suggest that gambling growth in Macau is shifting growth away from Las Vegas.