Thursday, May 12, 2005 | 9:10 a.m.
Las Vegas' past may save the future of Helldorado Days, once an annual, Western-themed community celebration that included rodeos, parades and other events that lasted almost two weeks.
Helldorado Days was created in 1934. For more than 60 years it was a popular fundraising event held by the Elks.
However, rising costs and other factors caused the event to lose money, and in 1999 it was canceled, with little hope that it would ever return.
Then the Las Vegas Centennial Celebration Committee asked that Helldorado Days be resurrected, if only for this year's 100th birthday party.
"This was the impetus," said Duane La Duke, one of the organizers of the born-again event.
"There were no plans to bring it back -- the city lit the fire."
Now, La Duke and others involved in the resurrection are hoping to return Helldorado Days to its annual status.
"As soon as we are done with this year's event we will start planning for next year's," La Duke, a retired insurance executive, said. "Our hopes are that we will bring it back every year.
"From what feedback we've been getting, it sounds like people want it back."
The 2005 Helldorado Days began April 29 with a series of daily trail rides in Red Rock Canyon that continued through May 1.
On Friday the Elks Lodge held the Helldorado Kick-Off Dinner, followed on Tuesday by the Helldorado Charity Poker Tournament at the Plaza.
A parade is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Saturday; the Helldorado Charity Golf Tournament at the Silverstone Golf Course will be held Monday, and from Wednesday through May 22 the Las Vegas Gun Club will hold the Helldorado Shootout Trap Shooting Tournament.
A Western village has been set up at Fremont and Third streets and will remain standing through Sunday. The faux village includes a fully operating post office, a livery stable, a general store and more.
What Helldorado Days doesn't have this year is a rodeo and a carnival, two core events of year's past. The plans this year were to team up with the Pace Picante Pro Rodeo Chute Out Rodeo.
"Then, Pace Picante was canceled," La Duke said.
The rodeo had lost money the past five years at Mandalay Bay. Pace Picante was going to move it to the Orleans Arena, then pulled out.
"This year will not be like the Helldorados of the past," La Duke said.
But he is confident the rodeo and carnival will be on the agenda next year.
"We'll have an old-flavor rodeo," La Duke said. "We'll focus on a high school rodeo championship and old-timers. It won't be a PRCA (Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association) event, where we have to pay high prize money.
"We're running Helldorado Days smarter and cheaper."
Business leaders started Helldorado Days 71 years ago as a marketing tool to attract tourism and encourage Hoover Dam workers to settle in Southern Nevada once that project was completed.
But the marketing tool turned into a fun community event that lasted for decades and created vivid memories.
Arizona carnival barker Clyde Zerby was Helldorado's first promoter. Zerby left after the first festival and Elks Lodge No. 1468 took it over.
As the years went by, Helldorado relocated from downtown to other venues, including Sam Boyd Stadium in its later years.
Plagued by high production costs, Helldorado was streamlined in 1997. The parade and carnival were canceled -- only the rodeo and the Western Village were retained.
The next year, the Elks entered into a two-year contract with a private promoter, GEM Entertainment, to defray costs and guarantee proceeds.
When the private promotion company lost money on the 1998 event, it canceled the 1999 show.
"One of the big reasons (for Helldorado's demise) was the cost of the rodeo," La Duke said.
La Duke said that livestock and other expenses were so burdensome that the price of tickets could not remain competitive enough to draw a crowd large enough to offset expenses, making it difficult for the Elks to fund the numerous charities that were long supported by proceeds from the event.
But there were other reasons, says La Duke.
"The last two years of the event we lost money -- the town turned around," he said. "There was so much competition. We relied heavily on our carnival to cover most of the cost.
"Then the weather was so bad for those two years that attendance was way down -- the weather and escalating costs were big factors."
La Duke said in the future Helldorado Days is going to be run as a business, "or not at all."
La Duke joined the Elks 25 years ago and was on the Helldorado Days Committee until 1997.
He, fellow committee member Larry Hughes and longtime Helldorado executive director Stef Purdy were asked to bring back the event.
"The lodge decided not to do it," La Duke said. "The three of us were asked to put it together, and so we got the rights to use the name and started work."
La Duke moved to Las Vegas in 1955.
"Helldorado is a tradition I grew up with," he said. "My friends and I looked forward to it every year. It was a big deal, a great fun thing. But it's a different mentality today. Back then we were still trying to get tourists into town, and the town was not as self-sustaining."
Hughes, a butcher, has been with the Elks for more than 20 years. He joined because of Helldorado. He had been a medical volunteer for the event's trail rides; eventually, he became the organizer of the rides.
The primary purpose of Helldorado is to raise money for the charity account of the Elks Lodge. Most of the money goes to youth activities.
But there has been little money since the demise of Helldorado Days.
"That's what we hope to bring back," Hughes said. "The last couple of years we haven't had the money for the scholarships and other things we used to contribute to."
Hughes says if the Elks want to resume control of Helldorado Days, he, Purdy and La Duke won't object.
Hughes believes a lot of the membership to the Elks was tied to the event.
"We had 1,500 members of the Elks Lodge, and when we lost Helldorado Days we dropped about 700 members."
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