The International Hotel Opens (1969)

About

In 1967 Kirk Kerkorian bought sixty-four and a half acres on Paradise Road, about half a mile east of the Strip, for $5 million. Las Vegas was then drawing fourteen million visitors a year, and he planned the world's largest resort beside the Las Vegas Convention Center. To learn the business he also bought the Flamingo. He spent about $60 million on the International and raised part of it by selling shares of his company, International Leisure, with SEC approval.

The International opened on July 1, 1969, as a thirty-story tower with 1,512 rooms, the largest hotel in the world, and a 30,000-square-foot casino, the largest anywhere. Its location next to the convention center made it a natural choice for conventioneers. The Online Nevada Encyclopedia describes it as the first Las Vegas "megaresort"; it also offered a supervised kids' program and a row of restaurants with different cuisines, ideas later copied across the Strip.

Barbra Streisand opened the showroom, followed weeks later by Elvis Presley, who chose the International to relaunch his live career. Westgate dates his first show to July 31, 1969. His debut engagement was a sell-out, and the Online Nevada Encyclopedia says he became the first entertainer to actually make money for a Las Vegas showroom, with ticket sales above $2 million. He stayed in a top-floor suite and played the hotel until December 1976.

Kerkorian's debts caught up with him, and he sold the International and the Flamingo to Hilton Hotels in 1970. As the Las Vegas Hilton it became, at one point in the 1980s, the highest-grossing convention hotel in the United States. It later added the Superbook and Star Trek: The Experience, became the Las Vegas Hotel & Casino in 2012, and has operated as Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino since 2014.

What to expect

Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino occupies the former International. Westgate says a bronze statue of Elvis Presley stands at the resort, his former performance space is now the International Theater, and guests can book an Elvis Presley Suite. It also runs a weekly Elvis tribute show, "The King Comes Home."

More from the 1960s

• The Rat Pack at the Sands (1960s)
• Howard Hughes Buys the Strip (1966-1970)

Before and after

• The MGM Grand Fire (1980)

Good to know

• Elvis's performance count depends on the source: Westgate says 636 sold-out performances, while the Online Nevada Encyclopedia says 837.
• Elvis was originally signed for $100,000 a week for eight weeks a year, according to the Online Nevada Encyclopedia.
• The International's land on Paradise Road was bought from developer Martin Kratter, who had planned a 1,500-room resort there.
• Kerkorian later built the first MGM Grand on the Strip, which opened in 1973, and the current MGM Grand in 1993.
• In the mid-2000s the Las Vegas Hilton had about 3,000 rooms and a skywalk to the Las Vegas Convention Center.

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