The evolution of Las Vegas, Nevada, is one of the most intriguing of any city in the United States. Desert oasis and water and electricity supplier for most of the Southwest, and a legendary gambler's paradise that is one of the world's most tantalizing and popular vacation spots, the city is most famously cast in the spuriously glamorous image of the Mafia. As such, it has come to color the vocabulary of popular culture through countless novels, movies, and television dramas. Surrounded by the Mojave Desert and flanked by mountain ranges, Las Vegas came of age in the shadow of the post-World War II American Dream, a shining example of excess as success, whose neon-lit casino strip glows on the horizon—a beacon attracting thousands of folk eager to try their luck. An adult Disneyland in southwestern Nevada, this dusty tinsel town effuses Old West history...