Las Vegas has always been brilliant at selling fantasies. One of its earliest and most persistent was the idea that the city grew out of a dusty frontier settlement—a place of cattle drives, saloons, and shootouts. This was the theme of Old Vegas, an amusement park that sold a version of Vegas that never existed.

Opened in 1978 along Boulder Highway in nearby Henderson, Nev., Old Vegas was a 55-acre tourist attraction developed by Robert Shelton as a “sister” property to his successful Old Tucson in Arizona. Designed as both a theme park and a working film backlot, Shelton even had Hollywood art directors lay out the streets to accommodate production crews.

The centerpiece was a massive replica of the Old Mormon Fort, the site of the first sustained Euro‑American settlement in the region. The real fort was established in 1855 by Mormon missionaries and abandoned in 1857—a short, harsh experiment in desert living. Old Vegas reimagined it as a frontier fortress housing shops, a steakhouse, a saloon, a 300‑seat theater, and the Hondo Casino, which by 1979 accounted for half the park.

Surrounding the fort was a fabricated Wild West town: boardwalks, stunt shows, stagecoaches, costumed performers, and a railroad that looped around the property.

One genuinely historic element did exist here. In 1978, Old Vegas relocated three surviving guest buildings from El Rancho Vegas, the Strip’s first full‑scale resort, which burned down in 1960. The plan was to restore the structures for future film and television productions, giving the park a ready‑made Western set with authentic Vegas lineage.

Ownership changed almost immediately. In early 1979, TV producer Burt Sugarman and Mexican industrialist Gabriel Alarcón Jr. bought the property and briefly rebranded it as Westworld—not connected to the 1973 Michael Crichton film, but clearly inspired by its theme‑park‑gone‑wrong aesthetic. Their ambitions were bigger: more rides, a video arcade, a train exhibit, and even a plan to screen Priscilla Presley’s private Elvis home movies.

But Westworld collided with the real world. Alarcón was denied a Nevada gaming license because investigators couldn’t trace the source of his money under Mexico’s accounting rules. The casino was half the park’s revenue, and without it, the business model wobbled. Attendance never stabilized, and by late 1979 the park reverted to the Old Vegas name.

Phase Two opened in 1980, adding a railroad museum, barbecue areas, and the Eureka Locomotive, along with equipment from the Virginia & Truckee Railroad. More rides were planned, but financial losses mounted. By 1982, renovation plans were shelved, and Old Vegas increasingly relied on bus tours rather than locals or Strip visitors.