Learn about early Vegas on self-guided walking tours

Last year's Las Vegas Centennial celebration played an important role in renewing interest in the community's history. In the past year, more than a dozen Las Vegas history books have appeared and numerous Web sites have been created to help tell about the city's early years.

One of the best is the official Las Vegas Centennial site (www.lasvegas2005.org/), which features a quartet of downloadable walking tour brochures devoted to the city's most historic neighborhoods and districts.

The Preservation Association of Clark County (www.pacc.info) developed the walking tour brochures in conjunction with the Nevada State Historic Preservation Office and the National Park Service, with text written by Las Vegas historian Dorothy Wright.

In the walking tour titled "A Guide to Historic Las Vegas," two dozen structures are listed, with brief descriptions of their historical significance. The tour begins at the Las Vegas Mormon Fort, 908 Las Vegas Blvd. North, site of the first non-American Indian settlement in the Las Vegas Valley.

From there, the tour heads to downtown, site of a number of the oldest remaining commercial buildings in the city, including the Golden Gate Hotel & Casino, erected in 1906; the Victory Hotel, built in 1910; and a handful of old railroad cottages (600 block on Casino Center Street) constructed for workers building the rail line that created the city.

More noteworthy sites on the tour include the Post Office/Federal Building at 301 E. Stewart St., a neo-classical edifice completed in 1933, and the El Cortez Hotel & Casino, which opened in 1941 as the downtown's first major resort.

Another of the tours explores the "Las Vegas High School Historic District," the area southeast of the downtown that is the oldest residential neighborhood in the city. This tour passes more than 30 historic homes constructed in the late 1920s and '30s.

It begins at the original Las Vegas High School, a handsome art deco structure built in 1930 by the Reno architectural firm George A. Ferris & Son. From the school, the tour winds through the surrounding neighborhood, mostly on Sixth and Seventh streets.

Along the way are homes built in a variety of architectural styles, including Spanish Revival, ranch, Vernacular-Moderne, Mission-Eclectic and others. Many were originally owned by pioneer Las Vegas businessmen and women such as Pop Squires (newspaper publisher), Reed Whipple (banker and city councilman), Davey Berman (gangster Bugsy Siegel's partner) and Walter Bracken (the railroad's main agent in Las Vegas).

The "John S. Park Historic District Walking Tour" describes another historic neighborhood developed between the 1930s and '50s. Consisting of two subdivisions, the Park Place Addition and the VegaVerde Addition, it contains dozens of stylish houses built in the Ranch and Minimal Traditional architectural styles that were popular during the time.

This historic district is near John S. Park Elementary School, roughly in the area of South Sixth through Ninth streets near Charleston Boulevard.

The final walking tour, "Historic West Las Vegas," encompasses an area developed in 1904 as a rival to Las Vegas. Originally called the McWilliams townsite, it later became known as the "Westside," because it was west of the train tracks.

Many of the first residents of this area were blacks, who were not allowed to live in other parts of the valley because of the city's Jim Crow (segregation) laws. As a result, West Las Vegas has a rich history that included hotel-casinos and other businesses that catered to blacks.

The tour begins at the C and Bonanza Railroad Underpass, a simple roadway with art deco touches that was the symbolic gateway to West Las Vegas. It passes the site of the Moulin Route Hotel and Casino, the first interracial resort, and the Binion House, a two-story stone structure once occupied by the owners of the Horseshoe Hotel and Casino.

Westside School is Las Vegas' oldest remaining schoolhouse, built in 1922. The stone-turreted Christienson Home, completed in 1932, once belonged to "Cowboy" Roy Christienson, a well-known local wrangler who often rode in the annual Las Vegas Helldorado Days parades.

To download the brochures, go to the Las Vegas Centennial Web site (www.lasvegas2005.org/historical/walkingtours.html).

• Richard Moreno is the author of "Backyard Travels in Northern Nevada" and "The Roadside History of Nevada."