Boulder Dam Hotel Archives
Boulder Dam Hotel
Image of hotel before the restaurant wing was added to the building.
Name/Title
Boulder Dam Hotel ArchivesEntry/Object ID
MS.1Scope and Content
Boulder Dam Hotel Archives MS 1 Boulder Dam Hotel Archives The Boulder Dam Hotel was built between 1933 and 1935, nearly ten years before the first modern resort was built in Las Vegas. Throughout the 1930s, the Boulder Dam Hotel was the most exclusive hostelry in southern Nevada. It hosted not only American celebrities, film stars, and politicians, but also foreign royalty, presidents, and other dignitaries. World War II ended the hotel's palmy days, and its fortunes were checkered as new owners bought it, refurbished it, then lost it again—more than once in the 1970s and '80s, the Boulder Dam Hotel was threatened with demolition. In 1993, the Boulder Dam Hotel Association was formed from the city of Boulder City, the Boulder City Art Guild, the Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum, and the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce to buy the hotel to save it from destruction. The building has undergone extensive renovation and remodeling and today houses 21 guest rooms, an art gallery, a museum exhibit space, and a restaurant. For a history of the hotel from 1933 through 1993, see Midnight on Arizona Street: The Secret Life of the Boulder Dam Hotel, by Dennis McBride [Boulder City, NV: Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum, 1993]. The Boulder Dam Hotel archives cover the hotel's history from the 1920s through 2000, including business records, oral histories, ephemera, news clippings, artifacts, and videotapes. * * *Category
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