Thursday, June 05, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Backstory: Requiem for the Rouge

By Michael Green

When the Moulin Rouge burned, part of the soul of Las Vegas went with it. But happily, few places in Las Vegas were the object of as much historical attention as the old casino at 900 W. Bonanza Road, so plenty of evidence of its past survives. And Preserve Nevada, a relatively new and much-needed organization, recently joined the charge led for years by other preservationist groups. Though it's too late now, it listed the Moulin Rouge as one of 11 Nevada buildings that needed to be saved, with others to come.

The Moulin Rouge opened in 1955 at the edge of the original McWilliams townsite, an early competitor with the railroad townsite east of the tracks. "Oldtown" burned late in 1905, crumbling for much the same reason that Sen. William A. Clark's townsite quickly attracted most local business and investment: water. Clark had it; McWilliams didn't. That part of town lacked a lot for nearly half a century--phone lines, paved streets, water lines. The area became the Westside or West Las Vegas. It was a segregated community, and African-Americans who came to Las Vegas looking for work soon learned that they had to live west of the tracks.

The unintentional result of this racism was the rise of a vibrant community. Blacks developed a society separate from white Las Vegans. They built their own churches, businesses and small casinos.

Then, in 1955, mostly white investors opened the Moulin Rouge. Their timing was bad. Four new hotel-casinos opened that year--the Riviera, Dunes, rebuilt New Frontier and Royal Nevada. The Royal Nevada soon closed and the others were in trouble. And if overbuilding wasn't bad enough, the Moulin Rouge was off the beaten path, miles from the Strip.

What made the Moulin Rouge special, though, was--oddly enough--the racist environment in which it was built. For the first time, on a consistent basis, whites and blacks could mingle in the same casino. The legacy of racism helped bring the new hotel a special kind of business. When great black entertainers like Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers, to name a few, finished their shows on the Strip, they had to leave. Many of them had stayed in boardinghouses or private homes in West Las Vegas. The Moulin Rouge gave them a place to stay--and play.

An old Las Vegas tradition was that entertainers would roam the Strip's lounges in the wee hours of the morning. Black entertainers couldn't do that. They headed for the Moulin Rouge. And so did white entertainers. It became the place to be.

It was the site of one of Las Vegas' most important historic moments: the Moulin Rouge agreement. NAACP president James McMillan watched civil rights protesters risk their all in the South and decided to try to do something about segregation in Las Vegas. He gave Strip and downtown casinos 30 days to allow black customers or face an organized boycott.

McMillan was offered the opportunity to be the first black to live at Lake Mead--more accurately, in it. But the casino owners went along. For one thing, the color that mattered most to them wasn't black or white; it was green. For another, they faced public and private pressure.

McMillan and other local civil rights advocates, black and white, met at the Moulin Rouge on March 26, 1960, to settle the issue. Then they left. But to this day, many refer to the "signing" of the Moulin Rouge Agreement. They signed nothing. Not only was the public aware of it, but these were casino owners who tended to have an interesting past; they avoided paper as much as possible. The West Las Vegas casino was a convenient place to meet; really, the significance was symbolic.

Unfortunately for the Moulin Rouge, symbolism isn't profitable. In a sense, the Moulin Rouge was a victim of its own success, limited though that success may have seemed. The growth of West Las Vegas meant money was to be made there. Too many white Las Vegans in the 1950s and '60s lacked tolerance, but money was another matter. And the hard-won gains of the local civil rights movement meant African Americans could spend their money--and their lives--just about anywhere they wanted.

Meanwhile, financial problems--bad management, bad planning or bad luck--have plagued the hotel-casino for nearly half a century. Some people, like Sarann Knight-Preddy and her family, tried mightily to revitalize it, but couldn't. The most recent owner, Bart Maybie, talked about big plans, especially for its 50th anniversary in 2005. Nothing materialized.

Now, except for the rooms and that striking neon sign, like the agreement for which it is remembered, the Moulin Rouge isn't really there. But it remains, as it always has been, a part of our history, to be celebrated and lamented. We lament the segregation tied to its past; now we lament that the Moulin Rouge may belong to the past. Maybe we can learn from this that the past needs to be saved.