Fond memories

Saturday, May 20, 2006 | 7:31 a.m.

As federal agents dig up a Michigan farm this week in the umpteenth attempt to find Jimmy Hoffa's body, local and national analysts are recalling how the former Teamster boss changed the Las Vegas landscape.

Hoffa, who disappeared on July 30, 1975, at age 62, is still considered a Las Vegas visionary by some for using the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund in the 1960s to bankroll casino construction - some of which helped land him behind bars.

"I think of Hoffa as the forgotten man of Las Vegas history," UNLV history professor Hal Rothman says.

"He was instrumental in using the pension money to finance construction of Caesars Palace, Circus Circus and other major resorts. We couldn't have gotten to where we are today without him."

By the mid-1970s, however, there were people who wanted Hoffa gone. And they took steps to do it, steps that were so good no one has been able to find a trace of him in 31 years.

The current search for Hoffa's remains is not the first time authorities have followed what they thought were good leads to solving his disappearance from a Michigan restaurant.

One long-standing rumor: He is buried in Giants Stadium in New Jersey, which was being built at the time Hoffa vanished.

Another, based on the deathbed letter of ex-union official Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran, is that he incinerated Hoffa's body in Detroit. Sheeran's daughter has called the letter a fake.

Three years ago, authorities dug up a back yard pool in a Michigan residential neighborhood and, in May 2004, investigators ripped up floorboards in a Detroit house where traces of blood had been found.

No Hoffa.

And while more than a million people have moved to the Las Vegas Valley since Hoffa was relevant here, some of the things he helped build by dipping into the union pension fund remain valued to the community.

"Hoffa provided the capital through the pension fund to build Sunrise Hospital," recalls David Millman, historian at the Nevada State Museum at Lorenzi Park. "These were legitimate investments that really helped the community."

Hoffa frequently visited Las Vegas from the late 1950s through the early 1970s, playing a significant role in national Teamster conventions and making speeches.

Lawrence Greene, a political science professor at the University of Michigan and an attorney, said Hoffa's actions were not so much to help Las Vegas grow, but rather to make the union stronger.

After Hoffa went to prison from 1967 to 1971 for defrauding the pension fund and jury tampering, Greene said, checks and balances were put in place on the fund to prevent a union leader from ever again having sole control over such investments.

"Hoffa's goal was to advance the cause of the Teamsters by making good investments - the legality of the investments notwithstanding," Greene said. "He knew investing in Las Vegas casinos would be successful to build up the Teamsters' pension fund."