Don Laughlin, Casino Owner and Namesake of Nev. Town He Created, Dies at 92
Don Laughlin, possessor of the Riverside Resort Hotel & Casino and namesake of the Sagebrush State townspeople he created, died on Sunday. He was 92. According to an declaration posted on his business’ Facebook page, Laughlin passed out peacefully while surrounded past family members.
“Don touched many lives inwards our local community as advantageously as nationwide, and we realize how difficult this word will live for many,” the declaration read. “Especially our Riverside Resort family. Don River Laughlin was genuinely an astonishing man to work with and take from.”
Small Town, Big Dreams
Born May 4, 1931, in Owatonna, Minn., Laughlin initially worked in trapping, installing grey-market slot machines inwards hunting lodges he visited as a $500/week position venture.
His mellow schooltime principal sum helped manoeuver the course of his career by gift Laughlin an ultimatum — pay upwardly the illegal expansion slot racquet or pull up stakes school.
It’s not firmly to guess which he decided.
In 1952, Laughlin made his path to Las Vegas, where he bought his first-class honours degree casino, the 101 Club inward Frederick North Las Vegas, II years later.
But Las Vegas wouldn’t stick, thanks to a foreboding(a) aerial navigate in his private aircraft.
The stumble suggested to Laughlin a often less plundered gold mine nearly 100 miles to the south of Vegas on the CO River, inward the area where Nevada, California, and AZ meet.
Vegas 2.0
By 1964, Laughlin derelict Vegas and purchased the southern tip of Nevada. Known since its founding inward the 1940s as South Pointe, it was where Laughlin began building what he envisioned as his Vegas 2.0.
The earth included an derelict eight-room motel and debar occupying 6.5 riverside acres. In 1966, Laughlin reopened the dimension with a gambling casino sporting 12 slots, II tabulate games, and all-you-can-eat white-livered dinners for 98 cents.
Eventually, it became the Riverside Resort, which Laughlin owned and reportedly operated until his death. South Pointe, meanwhile, became the unincorporated William Clark County townspeople of Laughlin, which Laughlin e'er said was non his idea. (He claimed he wanted to send for it Riverside or maybe regular Casino, Nev. But the station office staff dubbed it “Laughlin substation,” and the name stuck.)
Laughlin, the town, sprouted a second casino, the Bobcat Club, inward 1967 on the site of the current Golden Nugget Laughlin. Once the Monte Carlo followed a year later, a becalm well out of boats began shuttling queer observers from crosswise the CO River inward Bullhead City, Ariz., and Laughlin’s Vegas 2.0 had get a reality.
Today, Laughlin, Nev., houses eighter gambling casino resorts and the Laughlin/Bullhead City International Airport.
A tweet from Nev. Gov. Joe Lombardo called Laughlin “an outstanding Nevadan” who testament “always be remembered for his pioneering spirit, ingenuity. and long-suffering impact.”
Laughlin was preceded inward dying past his wife, Betty Laughlin, whom he married inward 1953. She died inward January 2022 at eld 89. Plans for a memorial serving are expected to be proclaimed shortly.
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