Today is Las Vegas’ Birthday and we launched The History of Las Vegas Project to celebrate.

This was one of the first projects I worked on when I came to work at the Las Vegas Sun. I was charged with building the interactive map as well as a few other misc things for the project. The first month I was at the Sun I built the interactive map and made some tweaks to it as the Sun team started to fill it with massive amounts of content, including: 80+ casinos since 1931, 16 personalities and major events that defined Las Vegas, 150+ stories from the Sun archives, 30 videos including an 11 part documentary called Boomtown: The Story Behind Sin City and panoramas and much more.

The history of Las Vegas is the ultimate American rags-to-riches story, filled with unusual heroes and foes. This 103-year-old saga follows the city through its incredible ups and downs, and highlights how and where some of the U.S.’s most monumental moments occurred. The largest American city founded in the 20th century took shape as a railroad watering hole before turning into the “Gateway to the Hoover Dam.” From there the town was known by its seedy mob label as “Sin City,” before finally transforming into the corporately-financed adult playground called the “Entertainment Capital of the World.”