<P> The famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign is located in the median just south of Russell Road, across from the now - demolished Klondike Hotel & Casino . Another similar (and newer) "Welcome to Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas" sign is in the median a mile north of the Strip at the intersection of Las Vegas Blvd and South 4th St. Newer resorts such as South Point and the M Resort are on Las Vegas Boulevard South as distant as 8 miles south of the "Welcome to Las Vegas" sign . Marketing for these casinos usually states that they are on southern Las Vegas Boulevard and not "Strip" properties . </P> <P> The first casino to be built on Highway 91 was the Pair - o - Dice Club in 1931, but the first on what is currently the Strip was the El Rancho Vegas, opening on April 3, 1941, with 63 rooms . That casino stood for almost 20 years before being destroyed by a fire in 1960 . Its success spawned a second hotel on what would become the Strip, the Hotel Last Frontier, in 1942 . Organized crime figures such as New York's Bugsy Siegel took interest in the growing gaming center leading to other resorts such as the Flamingo, which opened in 1946, and the Desert Inn, which opened in 1950 . The funding for many projects was provided through the American National Insurance Company, which was based in the then notorious gambling empire of Galveston, Texas . </P> <P> Las Vegas Boulevard South was previously called Arrowhead Highway, or Los Angeles Highway . The Strip was named by Los Angeles police officer and businessman Guy McAfee, after his hometown's Sunset Strip . </P> <P> Caesars Palace was established in 1966 . In 1968, Kirk Kerkorian purchased the Flamingo and hired Sahara Hotels Vice President Alex Shoofey as President . Alex Shoofey brought along 33 of Sahara's top executives . The Flamingo was used to train future employees of the International Hotel, which was under construction . Opening in 1969, the International Hotel, with 1,512 rooms, began the era of mega-resorts . The International is known as Westgate Las Vegas today . The first MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, also a Kerkorian property, opened in 1973 with 2,084 rooms . At the time, this was one of the largest hotels in the world by number of rooms . The Rossiya Hotel built in 1967 in Moscow, for instance, had 3,200 rooms; however, most of the rooms in the Rossiya Hotel were single rooms of 118 sq. ft (roughly 1 / 4 size of a standard room at the MGM Grand Resort). On November 21, 1980, the MGM Grand suffered the worst resort fire in the history of Las Vegas as a result of electrical problems, killing 87 people . It reopened eight months later . In 1986, Kerkorian sold the MGM Grand to Bally Manufacturing, and it was renamed Bally's . </P>

How did the las vegas strip get its name