Over the years, his civic projects would include an airport expansion, flood control work, and the opening of a ranch that provided beef to Laughlin's restaurants.
('You can't have a post office without having a town name,' says Matt, now COO of the Riverside Resort.) The postmaster at the time was of Irish heritage and liked the name Laughlin, so all the stars seemed to align.īut Don was just getting started.
The town itself - about a 90-minute drive from Las Vegas - became official when postal services were established. That motel added casino games and eventually evolved into the Riverside Resort, with two massive towers. 'He took a big risk by taking everything he had and investing it into an old boarded-up eight-room motel,' says his grandson, Matt Laughlin. At the time, the area was home to less than a thousand people. In 1964, pilot Don Laughlin was cashing in as the owner of the 101 Club in North Las Vegas and, while flying his plane over the Colorado River, saw a world of potential in a strip of Nevada land across the river from Arizona's Bullhead City. Here's the craziest thing about Laughlin, Nevada: It didn't even exist 55 years ago.
