By Sun Staff (contact)

Mon, Oct 27, 1952 (6 a.m.)

It isn't often that a man can say with honest conviction that he has seen a dream come true. but Milton Prell, executive manager of the sumptuous Sahara, recently made that statement. And those close to him know that he wasn't just talking to hear himself. It has been Mr. Prell's ambition, since his youthful days in St. Louis, to one day be the head of the finest resort hotel in America. Today that ambition is close to fulfillment. It has not yet been completely fulfilled because, in Prell's own words: "Our goal is now to make the name 'Hotel Sahara' synonymous with everything that is unsurpassed in the finest hotel luxury."

Milton Prell's family moved to Los Angeles when he was two years old and he attended public schools in that city. During his high school days he came to the conclusion that he was cut out to be a business man, and his first job found him a youthful success at the art of selling luggage. From the experience gained in this work, he went on to become an automobile salesman and later he became a jewelry salesman. Before long he organized his own jewelry organization which rapidly became one of the most successful in California.

In 1936. after a definite case of "love at first sight," he married a charming young lady named Debbie Zion. Today they have a lovely seven-year-old daughter, Sheila.

In 1937, still thinking in terms of his boyhood dream, Prell gave up his business in Los Angeles and moved to Butte, Mont., where he opened the "30 Club." He originally planned to enter the hotel business in Montana, but was sidetracked by the business potentialities of fabulous Las Vegas.

After many preliminary trips to Nevada, Mr. Prell and his family moved to Las Vegas in 1945 with the idea of opening a small hotel.

Remembering the success of his club in Butte, however, he decided first to open a similar spot here. Club Bingo soon became one of the most popular non-hotel gathering places in Las Vegas and its rapid success again brought forth they young Milton Prell's dream. For a time he thought of adding an adobe village to Club Bingo and making it a small but unique hostelrym but fortunately these plans on paper didn't fit in the with the maximum beauty and luxury which Milton Press had always visualized when he thought of owning his own hotel.

Early in 1951 he gathered around him several former business partners and proposed a deal which resulted shortly afterward in the grating of the first contract for the construction of Las Vegas' newest and greatest addition.