Welcome to the El Rancho Vegas Online Exhibit.  The El Rancho Vegas was the first casino resort built on what would become the Las Vegas Strip.  It opened on April 3, 1941 and closed after a catastrophic fire on June 17, 1960.

This online exhibit has two aspects:

In the first, visitors can browse a website extolling the comforts and amenities of the El Rancho Vegas.  If the El Rancho Vegas had survived into the Internet age, its website might have looked something like this.

Casino
The most historically significant four tables on the Strip, and much more.

Dining
Enjoy the Round-Up Room or Opera House, depending on the year. See the Strip's first buffet!

Entertainment
Thrill to headliners from Abbot and Costello to Zero Mostel!

Accommodations
Stay in the rooms where William Saroyan "slept the drunken sleep of the losing gambler."

Amenities
See the health club, the trellis, and the yacht.

The second half of the exhibit contextualizes the first, and showcases many artifacts, physical, photographic, and literary, of the El Rancho Vegas.  It is more like a traditional exhibition display, telling the history of the storied Strip resort: