Las Vegas is the largest city in Nevada and the catalyst of one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the United States. Revenue from hotels (including many of the world’s largest), gambling, entertainment, theme parks, museums, and other tourist-oriented industries forms the backbone of the economy. The nightclubs, casinos, and championship boxing matches are world famous, and entertainment enterprises have led to an increasing array of music, sports, gambling, and amusement centers up and down the main “strip,” as the city succeeded in the 1990s in redefining itself as a family resort, complete with monorail (opened 2004). Its 1,149-ft Stratosphere Tower is the country’s tallest observation tower. The city is also the commercial hub of a ranching and mining area and has diverse manufacturing, including gaming equipment.
In the 19th century, Las Vegas was a watering hole for travelers bound for southern California. In 1855-57 the Mormons maintained a fort there, and in 1864, Fort Baker was built by the U.S. army. In 1867 Las Vegas was detached from the Arizona Territory and joined to Nevada. Its main growth began with the completion of a railroad in 1905.
Founded in 1911, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce is an organization of business leaders who work to improve their community and the area’s business climate. A volunteer board of trustees governs the Chamber and a professional staff of more than 60 manages the day-to-day operations. A private, member-funded organization, the LVCC is the largest, most influential business organization in the state of Nevada and the third-largest local Chamber of Commerce in the United States. Of its over 6,700 members, 85 percent are small businesses with 25 or fewer employees.
The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce Collection contains an incomplete series of minutes of meetings of the Board of Directors as well as general meetings of the membership from the Chamber’s founding in 1911 through 1913, from 1924-29, and from 1944-48. Financial records include a dues ledger from 1911 ( in which minutes of meetings were penciled) and two cash books covering the years 1929-41. A series of scrapbooks of activities of the merchant’s Bureau of the Chamber from 1963 complied by the Bureau’s manager, Ken O’Connell, includes memoranda, correspondence and press clippings and photographs. There are a series of files on the history of the Chamber of Commerce, gathered for the Diamond Anniversary in 1986 including the Calendar produced by the Chamber as well as narrative histories of the Chamber and the Las Vegas News Bureau, photographs, clippings, and miscellaneous brochures and information. The collection also contains a number of Chamber of Commerce publications from 1948 to 1988.
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