Looking back at the Sun: 1950 - 1975

Friday, June 29, 2001 | 10:28 a.m.

1950 -- The Desert Inn finally opens. Hank Greenspun, doing its publicity, divests his minority ownership and quits when founder Wilbur Clark is pushed aside by the new owners led by Las Vegas power broker and underworld figure Moe Dalitz. Hank borrows $1,000 and puts it down toward the $104,000 purchase of the Free Press.

June 21, 1950 -- Hank publishes the first edition of the Free Press.

July 1, 1950 -- The Free Press is renamed. It becomes the Las Vegas Morning Sun. It goes from publishing three days a week to five days a week and eventually six days a week. The column, "Where I Stand" makes its Sun debut, with Hank welcoming readers to his new paper.

July 10, 1950 -- Hank pleads guilty to violating the federal Neutrality Act. He holds off his plea in a Los Angeles courtroom until afternoon, so the Review-Journal cannot get the story first. He is fined $10,000 and loses the right to vote.

Jan. 27, 1951 -- Nevada Test Site conducts its first nuclear test, code-named "Able." The atomic bomb was dropped from a plane over the Test Site's Frenchman Flat. It packed a nuclear punch of 10 kilotons, the equivalent of 10,000 tons of TNT. The Hiroshima bomb yielded 13 kilotons.

1951 -- The Sun starts opposing the political clout of Sen. Pat McCarran, D-Nev. The first feud is over an immigration reform bill. The feud continues until the senator's death in 1954.

1952 -- The paper is renamed the Las Vegas Sun. Showing its trademark backbone, the Sun backs an unknown U.S. Senate candidate, Thomas B. Mechling, in the primary against McCarran's pick, two-term Nevada Attorney General Alan Bible. Bible loses by 475 votes, and incumbent Sen. George "Molly" Malone beats Mechling in the general election.

October 1952 -- McCarran sends Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis., to Las Vegas to bait Hank Greenspun. In a public speech, McCarthy calls Hank an "ex-communist." He refers to the Sun as "The Daily Worker." Hank chases him off the podium.

March 24, 1953 -- At the obvious urging of Nevada political kingpin McCarran, 12 hotels and casinos cancel ads with the Sun. The Showboat refuses to join the ad boycott. In appreciation, Hank runs a one-column Showboat ad at the bottom of Page 1 until the Sun's redesign in the 1970s.

1954 -- With other investors, Hank starts KLAS Channel 8, the city's first commercial TV station.

February 1954 -- The Sun begins a seven-part series titled, "Is Senator McCarthy a Secret Communist?" The U.S. postmaster general is asked to yank the Sun's second-class mailing permit. Hank is indicted for "tending to incite murder or assassination" of McCarthy. Later in the year he is acquitted.

April 28, 1954 -- Federal agents raid Roxie's, a bordello off Boulder Highway. Later, during a sheriff's raid, some of the prostitutes shield themselves from photographers using Sun newspapers bannering the federal raid. A photo of prostitutes using the Sun -- with its headline Roxie's Raided -- to cover themselves becomes famous. Hank later charges Sheriff Glen Jones with having a financial interest in Roxie's. The sheriff sues. (See August 1955.)

Sept. 28, 1954 -- Sen. McCarran drops dead at a Democratic rally in Hawthorne. Three months later Alan Bible, winning election in November, takes a U.S. Senate seat just after the Senate censures McCarthy.

1955 -- Riviera Hotel opens. At nine stories, it is the tallest building in town.

August 1955 -- This month's issue of "True" magazine ("The Man's Magazine") sports a cover story about Hank Greenspun's hiring of a New York investigator (Pierre LaFitte) in August 1954. LaFitte posed in Las Vegas as "Louis Tabet" while flashing cash and meeting with crooked power brokers.

Fall 1955 -- The Sun starts its annual Youth Forum, in which high school students debate world, national and local issues.

May 1956 -- Fremont Hotel opens in downtown Las Vegas, and with 12 stories becomes the area's tallest building.

1960 -- Blacks threaten sit-ins at Strip hotels unless the hotels agree to accept them as guests. An accord -- arranged by Hank, Gov. Grant Sawyer and local NAACP officials -- ends Las Vegas' reputation as "the Mississippi of the West."

June 17, 1960 -- El Rancho Vegas, at the corner of Sahara Avenue and the Strip, burns.

Oct. 18, 1961 -- President John F. Kennedy pardons Hank on his July 10, 1950, conviction of violating the federal Neutrality Act, in connection with helping to supply arms to Israel. Hank regains his civil rights, including the right to vote. Also this day, housing developer and New York Yankees owner Del Webb buys the Mint Casino in downtown Las Vegas. Webb adds a 24-story tower, making it the tallest building in Nevada.

1962 -- Hank runs for governor, losing in the GOP primary to retail store owner Oran Gragson, who loses in the general election to Democrat Grant Sawyer.

Nov. 20, 1963 -- The Sun building at 900 S. Main St. burns. The Review-Journal helps out the first few days with printing, but charges Hank overtime wages. Hank arranges to have the paper printed in California and flown in. He calls it "the longest paper route in the world."

Nov. 22, 1963 -- President Kennedy is slain in Dallas. Despite the fire, the Sun has full coverage and never misses an edition.

1965 -- New presses are installed at the Sun building on South Highland Drive.

Nov. 19, 1965 -- In a cab's back seat on Fremont Street, Hank talks a suicidal gambler into surrendering his shotgun.

1966 -- Steve Wynn becomes a 3 percent investor in the New Frontier, his first step in Nevada gaming. Another name change is in store for this hotel as groundbreaking begins at the site across from the Desert Inn. The hotel first opened in 1946 as the Last Frontier. Its name changed in 1955 to New Frontier. This latest groundbreaking results in a 1967 opening as the Frontier.

1967 -- Howard Hughes buys the Frontier for $14 million. He now owns four properties -- the Frontier, Desert Inn, Sands and Silver Slipper. He later buys Harold's Club in Reno and the Landmark and Castaways in Las Vegas. The Sun newsroom staff moves from 900 S. Commerce to new quarters on South Highland, next to the presses installed in 1965.

1969 -- Kirk Kerkorian opens the International Hotel (now the Las Vegas Hilton), which was then the world's largest hotel. Barbara Streisand is the opening star and performs for four weeks. Elvis Presley then has a long run.

1970 -- The Sun starts its ongoing Camp Fund, so kids whose families can't afford it may go to summer camp.

1972 -- Watergate figures break into Hank's office, apparently hoping to find in his safe incriminating files against Democrats or hoping to recover documents incriminating President Nixon. They peel the front off the safe but are unsuccessful cracking it.

October 1972 -- The Sun begins its transformation from "hot type," installing a "cold type" Pacesetter machine.

1975 -- The Sun continues to make technological progress, installing an Alpha Super Scanner, which scans reporters' copy from electric typewriters and reproduces it on photographic paper, which is then cut up and pasted onto pages that in turn are burned onto plates for the press. The Sun's Linotype machines are sold and the paper enters the computer age when a Dymo computer is installed.

Aug. 30, 1975 -- The Sun publishes its 25th anniversary edition.