#jay florian mitchell

[vintagelasvegas]

El Rey Club, Searchlight, Nevada, March 1961

Mari Renfro (far left, body double in Hitchcock’s Psycho shower scene), Virginia Gordon, Linda “Ginger” Gibson, Sandi Silver, and Patti Brooks at Willie Martello’s El Rey Club. Photo by Jay Florian Mitchell, Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas.

The women were on the set of a movie production called Wide Open Spaces. It was never released but the footage was later used in Tonight for Sure, the result of editing a 12-minute short by Francis Ford Coppola together with the Wide Open Spaces footage. Coppola was hired to intercut the two and credited himself director on the final film.

“The El Rey was the main bordello when I was growing up in Searchlight. Every Thursday afternoon, the whoremonger in town, a kindly bear of a man by the name of Willie Martello, would ask the girls who worked at the El Rey to clear out, and he’d invite the children in town, usually no more than a dozen or so at a time, to swim in his pool.” - Senator Harry Reid in The Good Fight.

El Rey Club, '58 and '59. Photos by Jay Florian Mitchell. 0107:0635, 0107:0643. Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas.

Andy Martello. The King of Casinos: Willie Martello and The El Rey Club. 2014.

Published 12/29/2017, updated 5/12/2026.

[newyorkthegoldenage]

The J. S. Krum soda fountain and candy store at 2468 Grand Concourse in the Bronx ca. 1935.

Photo: Jay Florian Mitchell via Hulton Archive/Getty Images/seeoldnyc.com

[vintagelasvegas]

Foxy’s Restaurant, Bakery, and Delicatessen, 2423 S. 5th St (Las Vegas Blvd), Las Vegas. April 16, 1955.

Photo by Jay Florian Mitchell.

Opened by Abe Fox in 1955, Foxy’s was the only restaurant on the Strip where African American customers were allowed to dine.

Jerry Fox: A lot of the stars would come in. Then my dad would deliver to the back of the Sands Hotel where Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole, some of the black entertainers, were staying. We delivered back there because they stayed in a cottage in back of the Sands. We were the first ones to really initiate that … We had some black cooks. This is how that came about.

(1) Jay Florian Mitchell collection, Nevada State Museum Las Vegas. (2) Postcard. Credited: Photo by Ames. Jerry Fox oral history interview (OH-02183), Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries.

[vintagelasvegas]

Las Vegas, February 13, 1964

Facing west towards the Strip. Flamingo (upper left), and the Sands (upper right). In the foreground is the residential community Central Park West, developed by Irwin Molasky, Merv Adelson, and Harry Lahr of Paradise Homes Inc. The circular building is the present location of The Sphere.

Photo by Jay Florian Mitchell, Nevada State Museum Las Vegas, 0107:1820.

"I lived in the round building from '66-'68 ... remember the murder of a show boy named Rudy, my the downstairs neighbor on the second floor. The building caught on fire from the tear gas canisters the police used to flush out the killer ... Police confiscated the door of the apartment and left the apartment wide open for a day or two. I went in and saw the victim’s dinner on the table. Applesauce and macaroni and cheese. There was blood smeared across the top of the coffee table where the phone sat where he probably tried to call police. His closet contained costumes." - Georgi Gold to Vintage Las Vegas (2025).

Central Park West resident Rudy Rajkovich of Tropicana's Folies Bergere was shot and killed by a downstairs neighbor on 1/9/67. The killer was sentenced 3-10 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter.

Las Vegas Review-Journal, 7/19/67.

[vintagelasvegas]

Construction of Circus Circus, 1968.

Work began summer 1968. Circus Circus opened 10/18/68. All photos by Jay Florian Mitchell, except indicated.

"This is the billboard they put up announcing the construction of the Circus Circus Casino. The sign guys had a little fun when they purposely left her top exposed and went home for the weekend." - Teresa Hooper. Photo by R. Scott Hooper.

August 6, 1968. (Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas.)

September 1968. (Nevada State Museum Las Vegas, and Jay Sarno Photograph Collection, PH-00347, UNLV Special Collections & Archives.)

Casino and mezzanine during construction, September 1968.

Driveway and fountain. Travelodge (left) and Riviera (right).

[vintagelasvegas]

Terminal at McCarran Field, Las Vegas, 1963.

Photos by Jay Florian Mitchell.

This six-sided passenger terminal opened March 15, 1963. Planned since the late 50s, it was built on the opposite side of the airport runways from the original gateway and terminal on Hwy 91, repositioning the airport entrance to Paradise Road.

The architects were Welton Becket Associates (Los Angeles) and John Replogle (Las Vegas). Pierre Cabrol was the designer and Richard Bradshaw was the structural engineer, both of Welton Becket Associates.

“Richard Bradshaw was a brilliant expert in thin shell concrete construction; that soaring roof is as thin as four inches. It is in fact a more authentic expression of modern thin shell structure than New York's TWA terminal by Eero Saarinen, who designed that building as elegant sculpture, and then handed it to his engineer to figure out how to build it using more conventional means. Bradshaw began with the engineering principles of thin shell, and then expressed those elegant principles as elegant forms. Both buildings were in the design process basically at the same time. The TWA building has definitely received more publicity but Las Vegas can be proud of this design.” - Alan Hess to Vintage Las Vegas, 2023.

Thanks to Welton MacDonald Becket and Alan Hess for their help on this article.

Photo, top: J. Florian Mitchell via Continuous Lean. Below: Construction photos by Las Vegas News Bureau; aerial via LAS Airport.

Airport’s Art Zone, LV Sun, 11/26/2007; Quote from Alan Hess, Vintage Las Vegas, Facebook; Architectural Forum the Magazine of Building 1960-05: Vol 112 Issue 5.

[vintagelasvegas]

Aerial view of Marble Manor and Moulin Rouge, Las Vegas, September 1, 1956

Bonanza Road in the foreground. Moulin Rouge, lower right. The T-shaped building to the left is the Montmartre aka Mo’ Mart Motel, originally tied to operations of the Moulin Rouge. The motel was leased by Alfred Childs, one of the licensed owners of the Rouge. After the closure of the Rouge, Childs continued to operate the motel as a separate entity. The smaller building to the far left is West Motel, a separate property.

Beyond the Moulin Rouge is the first section of the Marble Manor community, bounded by Washington Ave, H St, McWilliams Ave, and J St.

Photo by Jay Florian Mitchell, possibly taken for the bankruptcy sale of the Moulin Rouge held in 1956. African American Experience in Las Vegas, UNLV Special Collections and Archives.

[vintagelasvegas]

Opening night at Moulin Rouge, May 24, 1955

Guests are in the casino. The ropes mark the entrance to the showroom. Photo by Jay Florian Mitchell.

In uniform is Perry "Gold Dollar" Rose (3/5/09-8/24/89), a champion of the all-black rodeo from '42-'53 and for more than 50 years a confidant, driver, and security team of Benny Binion. Rose came to Las Vegas from Texas with Benny Binion in the late 40s. While Binion was in prison Rose took other work, then returned to work with Horseshoe club after Binion returned, until his final retirement in '78.

[In '60] after a threatened march by the NAACP, club owners agreed to integrate. This represented progress, though modest and spotty, and the Horseshoe was slow to comply. Dr. James McMillan, president of the Las Vegas NAACP, did not press the matter at the Horseshoe because of Gold Dollar, the ex-chauffeur who had gone back to work for Binion. "This guy was six-foot-six inches tall and weighed 300 pounds. A rough, tough, bad cowboy," McMillan said of Gold Dollar. "Him being a security guard there, we felt that we just couldn't challenge Binion at that particular time. We let that alone. Binion took his own time hiring black people, and he took his own time letting black people in." - Doug Swanson. Blood aces: the wild ride of Benny Binion, the Texas gangster who created Vegas poker. Amberley, 2015.

Photo from African American Experience in Las Vegas, UNLV Special Collections; Black rodeo star Perry Rose dies at 80. Review-Journal, 8/29/89.