Mikulich, member of longtime motel family, dies

Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2004 | 9:33 a.m.

Talking to people who knew Joseph Mikulich -- whose family has been in Las Vegas almost 100 years -- you hear about a city where doors were unlocked and sand overtook the buildings rather than the other way around.

That city's gone, and with the passing Friday of Mikulich at the age of 81, so is another of the city's native sons.

Memorial services will be 2 p.m. Thursday at Bunkers Mortuary.

Mikulich was manager, along with other family members, for many years, of two downtown motels: the Ambassador, at Ninth and Fremont streets, and the Best Western Ambassador, at 10th and Fremont. The family owned the motels as well.

Mikulich was born on the same block in 1922, six years after his father, Sam, came to the area from Los Angeles, according to his brother-in-law, Louis Pisani.

Sam Mikulich's first foray into business locally was the Vegas Cafe, a restaurant downtown, which closed in the 1930s. He opened the Ambassador Motel about a decade later, where his five children -- including Joe -- would work in the decades to come, his wife, Betty, said.

It was a time, according to Betty, when Las Vegas was "open and free, like a farming community."

She and Joseph came to live in the area near where University Medical Center is now located when it was "all desert."

"It was dirt roads where one car could fit at a time ... and you'd have to move over for a car to pass," she said.

The Ambassador was one of the first motels downtown, Pisani said. The whole family worked hard to keep the business afloat, long before corporations controlled tourism here, he said.

But as the years passed, downtown became less attractive to tourists, and the Strip took over as the Las Vegas Valley's leading draw.

"(Joseph) thought downtown would never die," Pisani said. "Who knew this town would grow the way it did?"

The Mikulich family sold both motels to pioneer downtown gaming operator Jackie Gaughan in 1990.

Joseph Mikulich is survived by Betty, his wife of 54 years, their son Gary, two daughters, Christine and Rosemary -- Pisani's wife -- as well as four grandchildren.

"He loved Las Vegas," Betty said. "He used to say, 'Why did it have to blossom out so much?' "