I just returned to Pennsylvania today from a business trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, a trip delayed for an evening in Chicago due to mechanical failure that forced a late change in planes. It was my first visit to Vegas, and I enjoyed seeing the sights and scenes. I do not gamble, so the casinos were of interest only as a spectator sport and for the shows and crowds. I did not find any wargaming stores of note, expecially with any significant quantities of historicals.
Few Civil War things of interest, since Las Vegas was founded in 1905, but the New York, New York hotel does have a statue of a uniformed Thomas Meagher of the Irish Brigade. Appropriately, it stands in front of an Irish drinking house. Las Vegas’s Woodlawn Cemetery has two ACW veterans lying side by side, men buried in the 1930s. Ironically, one wore blue and one wore gray during the war. There apparently is a CWRT in Las Vegas, although I don’t know how active it is.
Good business meetings, sunny weather (albeit 106 degrees!), good food, an interesting side trip out to Hoover Dam on the Arizona border, and safe travels (although spending the might in Chi-town at a hotel near Midway was annoying as I wanted to get home)… all added up to a memorable first trip to Las Vegas.
Seeing all the slot machines and gaming tables reminded me of just how glad I am that the recent Gettysburg casino proposal was rejected. We don’t need this sort of entertainment near Gettysburg, and routes 15 and 30 are already way too crowded in the summertime. A casino would only add to the traffic situation. “No Casino Gettysburg” was definitely the right movement with the right results. Let’s hope we never see a casino in this part of once rural and scenic south-central Pennsylvania!
What area attractions do you like best in Las Vegas?
CHARGE! Civil War miniature wargaming and dioramas 
The department store “Goldwaters” was interesting.
Doug,
I did not make it downtown, other than one evening to see the Fremont Street Experience, a marvelous overhead light show on the canopy covering this pedestrian mall. Fabulous graphics!
The Goldwaters chain of department stored disappeared several years ago when they were acquired by the May Company. The Las Vegas site is now the Macy’s store.
Scott
A lot of the old casinos made famous during the Dean Martin / Frank Sinatra / “Rat Pack” days are gone, demolished in the 1990s to make space for the mega-attractions that now line the Strip. The Dunes, The Sands, Stardust, etc. are all gone, replaced by the Venetian and other casinos where gambling is supplemented by massive hi-tech tourist attractions and shopping experiences. Sinatra would not recognize the place.
I’m sorry I didn’t come across this forum sooner. The CWRT here is very active indeed. In fact, we are hosting the annual West Coast Conference of Civil War Round Tables in November. In addition to Meagher, the NY, NY has that replica of Grant’s Tomb with the Civil War Soldier at the top. According to Ed Bearss the last time he was here to speak, the Woodlawn Cemetery plot with the two CW soldiers is the only one in the nation where a Northern and Southern soldier share a common headstone. That monument is part of the Round Table logo. Also out here is the Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, where there is a big (for the West) CW reenactment at the end of October. The ranch was founded by a veteran of the California Infantry just as soon as he mustered out in 1866.
Steve, would you let us know the name of the hotel?
We attend the West Coast Conference of CWRTs every year, but this year I have had no luck finding the information we need to make hotel reservations.