Frontier site (empty lot) + Fashion Show
The empty lot where Elvis bombed, Siegfried & Roy debuted, and America's longest strike finally ended.
Key facts
- The Last Frontier opened in 1942 as the second resort on the Strip; the property (later the New Frontier) was imploded in 2007 and the site has largely remained an empty lot since.
- Elvis Presley made his Las Vegas debut at the New Frontier in April 1956, and the engagement was poorly received — the older casino crowd did not respond to him — a striking contrast to his triumphant 1969 return.
- A labour strike against the Frontier ran 6 years and 4 months, from 1991 to 1998 — one of the longest strikes in U.S. history.
Narration transcript
On your left, right beside the Fashion Show mall, is a wide patch of empty desert — and for a bare lot, it has a remarkable amount of history buried in it. This was the Frontier, and its earliest version, the Last Frontier, opened back in 1942 as only the second resort on the whole Strip. It was imploded in 2007, and it has mostly sat vacant ever since — the purest “site of” on the tour, a headline act with nothing left but dust.
Here's the great one: this is where Elvis bombed. In April 1956, a young Elvis Presley made his Las Vegas debut right here — and it flopped. The older, tuxedoed casino crowd just didn't know what to do with a hip-swivelling kid from Memphis, and the reviews were brutal. It took thirteen more years and a whole new town before Vegas fell in love with him. The song on your screen is one he was singing back then, “Blue Suede Shoes” — the sound that this room didn't get.
Two more ghosts from this lot: Siegfried & Roy gave their first headline performances here, years before the Mirage — and the workers here waged a strike that ran six years and four months, from 1991 to 1998, one of the longest in American history.
Keep driving north. On your left, watch for a sleek new tower — that's Resorts World — and it stands on the site of the Stardust, the hotel that gave us the movie Casino. Circus Circus is just beyond it.