Las Vegas Park Race Track, 1953
Las Vegas Park Race Track went bust after just 13 days of live racing in 1953, a failure of what was intended to marry the city’s growth as an entertainment and gambling destination with Thoroughbred racing’s boom. The site later became Las Vegas Country Club.
Joe Smoot founded Las Vegas Park in ‘49, and acquired 750 acres from the Leigh Hunt estate at $750/acre. The architects were Arthur Froehlich and Paul R. Williams. Construction began in summer of ‘50, and by the following year the business was bankrupt.
Smoot pleaded not guilty to a grand jury embezzlement indictment. In federal court, failing to produce receipts or canceled checks for $500,000 in missing money, he said: “You ever try to pay a politician with a check?”
Las Vegas Jockey Club, a new corporation headed by Lou Smith and Al Luke, emerged as the new owner and operator in early 1953. The park opened September 4, 1953. Their only season was married by faulty ticking and betting equipment. The stables were vacated in Oct. ‘53. Joe W. Brown bought the track following its second bankruptcy.
Video: construction and opening of Las Vegas Park in 1953
Las Vegas Turf Club was the second organization to use the track for horse racing. Their Dec. ‘54 season had poor attendance, as low as 400. Ten years later in ‘64 & 65, Las Vegas Park was used for the last time for Nevada Racing Association’s Thunderbird Downs. (The name Thunderbird Downs was also used for the half-mile track a short distance away at the Thunderbird Hotel.)
Throughout the 50s, the track – alternately known as Joe W. Brown Race Track – was also used for convention events, and automobile racing: American Automobile Association Championship (‘54), NASCAR Grand National Championship (‘55), and the USAC Grand Prix (‘59). It was the setting of the race track in Elvis Presley’s “Viva Las Vegas.”
Part of the property was sold to Clark County in ‘57 for the construction of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Joe W. Brown’s estate sold the remaining property to National Equities Inc* in ‘65 for the creation of what became Las Vegas Country Club. National Equities sold a western portion to Kirk Kerkorian for The International Hotel; 20 acres to Clark County for an expansion of the Convention Center; the southeast section was saved for what would be come Regency Tower, Las Vegas’ first residential high-rise.
Note on Las Vegas Country Club: National Equities was a division of Levin-Townsend Computer Corp, the owner of Bonanza Hotel & Casino. Chairman Marvin Kratter developed the country club which opened Oct. ‘67 as International Country Club. The name was changed to Bonanza Country Club in Apr. ‘69. The property was sold late ‘70 to Realty Holdings (Dalitz, Lahr, Adelson, Molasky) who renamed it Las Vegas Country Club, and made it a private country club in ‘71, eventually making the club a true equity membership Club that has operated as such to this date.
Photos: Las Vegas News Bureau, Keeneland Library Thoroughbred Times.
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