El Rancho Vegas
The El Rancho Vegas was located at 2500 Las Vegas Blvd. South. When it opened on April 3, 1941, it was the first resort on what would become the Las Vegas Strip. The hotel gained much of its fame from the all you can eat buffet that it offered. The hotel stayed in business until it was destroyed in a 1960 fire.
The hotel had 63 rooms at the start, which was a large number of rooms for the day.
History
Despite vows to rebuild the El Rancho Vegas after the fire, the plans never materialized. In 1970, billionaire Howard Hughes purchased 60 acres (243,000 m?) of the land. In 1978, a wrecking ball was brought in to destroy the remnants of the main building of the old resort and turned the grounds into a vacant lot.
For many years there were plans to develop on the land, but many of the proposed projects fell through or not approved. Among the interesting proposals was a plan by Bob Stupak to build a replica of the Titanic. Finally in 2001, part of the vacant lot was purchased by the Hilton Hotels Corporation to build a timeshare, which opened in 2004.
Other uses of this name
The El Rancho was also the name of the former Thunderbird resort, which adopted that name in 1982 until its closing in 1992.