Monday, Oct. 7, 2002 | 8:54 a.m.
We're grateful that today's 50th anniversary celebration of the Sahara hotel-casino does not have to be limited to looking at old postcards or listening as someone talks nostalgically of what it used to be. While it's certainly changed a lot since opening in 1952, the original hotel nevertheless still stands at Sahara Avenue and the Strip. Las Vegas simply wouldn't be the same if the Sahara, like other vintage hotels in the 1990s, had been imploded to make way for a reinvented Strip.
Bill Bennett, who turned Circus Circus into a success and created the Luxor and Excalibur hotels, bought the Sahara in 1995 and brought his many years of experience to the job of not only saving the hotel, but turning it into a resort attractive to today's visitors. Bill Bennett has made many contributions to Las Vegas over the years -- he fed the Culinary Union workers during their three-year strike at the Frontier -- and his saving of the Sahara has to rank as among the most important. Allow us to offer a toast: To the Sahara's next 50 years.
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