Las Vegas in the 1940s Cortez Hotel and Casino. The Arizona Club, also known as the "Queen of Block 16", was the first Las Vegas saloon to have second story constructed for prostitution and was unchallenged until 1941. In 1942, Las Vegas closed its prostitution district, accommodating a request from the military, and by December 1942, bars and casinos were closed for an eight-hour period, starting at 2:00 AM. The West Side Club opened for African American customers in the early 1940s as, in 1942, Las Vegas city commissioners denied a permit for an interracial hotel-casino in the Downtown area. The Hotel Last Frontier was
Plaza Hotel (Las Vegas, New Mexico) three-story department store, next door to the hotel. The plaza was the commercial center of the region for the next thirty years. In 1885 the former outlaw Dick Liddil (1852–1901) sold his saloon in West Las Vegas and leased the Plaza Hotel's bar and billiard room. The Plaza was the leading hotel in Las Vegas until the late 1890s, when Santa Fe Railroad built the luxurious La Castañeda, which was operated by Fred Harvey as part of the Harvey House chain. By the end of the 1890s Las Vegas rivaled Denver, El Paso and Tucson in importance. The dry climate