Las Vegas needs no introduction as the gambling capital of the world, home to iconic casinos like Caesars Palace or the Bellagio. They weren’t the first casinos there, however, because that privilege belongs to the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino.
Once known as the Hotel Nevada, this establishment has gone by several names over the years. You can learn all about them here, where we’ve told the full story of the casino that helped make Las Vegas what it is today.
Building the Hotel Nevada
America’s brightest city was only founded 100 years ago, as a humble settlement built on Nevada’s sun-scorched sands. Back then, there were only a hundred people living in the area. Among them was hotelier John F. Miller, one of Vegas’ earliest residents. When land went on sale in 1905, he snapped up his own slice of desert for $1,750 – $63,000 in today’s purchasing power.
First, he built the imaginatively named Miller Hotel, but this was just a temporary venture made using tents and other makeshift structures. Despite its ramshackle nature, it was the first site in Las Vegas to receive a modern plumbing system. The Miller Hotel was just biding time, as the hotelier built a two-story hotel on the land he had acquired.
Miller’s real prize would open its doors in 1906 – the Hotel Nevada. This was the first hotel in Vegas and one of the few concrete hotels for miles. It was also the first property in Las Vegas to receive a telephone line, which meant its phone number was literally #1 for years. When the hotel wasn’t racking up firsts, it was catering to guests and hosting gambling rooms. They specifically kept tables for blackjack and poker, to keep guests and desert drifters entertained. That ended in 1909 when Nevada temporarily banned gambling in the state.
Becoming the Sal Sagev
The Hotel Nevada continued to grow off its status as one of Vegas’ biggest and best hotels. Its prime 1 Fremont Street location became even more beneficial when the street was officially paved in 1925. Over time, the site expanded to support over 100 rooms arranged across four stories.
The state’s ban on gambling was lifted in 1931. Just a year later, the hotel rebranded, settling on the name “Sal Sagev” – Las Vegas spelled backward. John F. Miller’s children, Abe Miller and Helen Nugent continued to manage the site as Vegas grew throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s. As part of that growth, Abe subleased one of the Sal Sagev’s floors to businessmen from California, most notably gaming pioneer Italo Ghelfi.
Ghelfi led a team of eight men, all Italian-Americans, who paid $25,000 a month to the Miller family – equivalent to an eye-watering $300,000 today – and they part of a larger group of 22 partners. Together, they opened a nearly 10,000-square-foot casino on the Sal Sagev’s ground floor. The casino’s Californian operators brought a little bit of San Francisco with them by naming it the Golden Gate.
Time as the Golden Gate
For decades, the Sal Sagev operated as the hotel while the Golden Gate operated as its built-in casino. This state of affairs continued until 1974 when the Golden Gate’s success as a casino eclipsed the hospitality brand. They decided to bring the whole property under the Golden Gate brand, becoming the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino.
By 1985, Abe Miller and Helen Nugent had passed. Soon after, Italo Ghelfi purchased the property outright to continue the Golden Gate’s legacy. Soon after, Las Vegas celebrated the hotel’s 90th anniversary where it was named as the city’s most historic hotel.
Having stayed a family-run business for most of its tenure, Ghelfi’s step-son Mark Brandenberg would assume control of the property by the 2000s. Renovations followed, and then Brandenberg sold a 50% stake in the casino to brothers Derek and Greg Stevens, who already had experience as stakeholders in the Riviera before it got demolished. By 2016, the Stevens brothers had become full owners of the Golden Gate.
The Golden Gate is Still Open
That leads us to where the Golden Gate stands today, as Las Vegas’ most enduring hotel and casino. Despite its many expansions and renovations over the years, today the Golden Gate is the smallest hotel on Fremont Street, with just 122 rooms available.
However, this small hotel casts a very large shadow and commands respect as one of the first businesses to put Las Vegas on the map. If Miller hadn’t gambled with his Hotel Nevada experiment – a gamble that clearly paid off – then there’s no telling what modern Vegas would look like today.
