1954–2006 · Showboat → Castaways

The Whole Story

Everywhere else on this site, the Showboat still talks like it’s 1961. This page is where we set the record straight — dates, dollars, and how a riverboat in the desert became an apartment address. Every claim is sourced; see Credits & Sources.

The tall vertical SHOWBOAT roadside sign photographed against the sky in 1968 — The roadside tower sign on Fremont Street, 1968 — visible long before the boat itself. Photo: Butch, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0

1954 — The riverboat lands

September 3, 1954: William J. Moore and J. Kell Houssels open the $2 million, 100-room Showboat at 2800 East Fremont — the first resort built inside city limits but away from the tourist corridors. The casino floor is leased to a Desert Inn syndicate that includes Moe Dalitz. Tourists call it too remote; the early years are lean.

The pivot

Manager Joe Kelley stops chasing the Strip crowd and aims at the people who run this town — dealers, waitresses, builders. The 49-cent ham-and-eggs breakfast becomes legend, and the “locals’ casino” is invented on this floor, decades before the industry gives it a name.

1959 — Pins fall

Kelley adds a bowling alley. It grows until, by 1979, the Showboat holds 106 lanes — the largest bowling center in the United States. From 1960 to 2000 the PBA’s Showboat Invitational makes the house a fixture of national television.

1973 / 1976 — The tower

A 19-story tower rises in two phases; the boat now sleeps some five hundred. Parent company Showboat Inc. goes on to open the $235 million Atlantic City Showboat in 1987 and reaches as far as East Chicago and Sydney.

The Pavilion

In the early 1980s general manager Frank Modica turns a convention room into the Sports Pavilion: world-class boxing, AWA wrestling, roller derby — then, later, a 1,300-seat bingo hall. The TV spots of those years end on a jingle regulars say they can still sing: “It’s better than ever — it’s better at the Boat!”

A vintage two-view Showboat postcard showing the resort by night and by day — Night and day on one postcard, 1950s–60s: 'Greetings from Las Vegas.' Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

Black-and-white photograph of the Showboat's opening ceremony on September 3, 1954: a large crowd around the flag-bunted riverboat prow, a speaker at a lectern, parasols, 1950s cars, and empty desert with a Coca-Cola billboard beyond — September 3, 1954: the ribbon morning — bunting on the prow, pennants off the stacks, parasols in the crowd, and open desert behind the parking lot. Photo: Jay Florian Mitchell — Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas · Displayed at the site owner's direction, credited to the photographer and holding museum; removal on request

The Showboat's riverboat facade in 1968: a red SHOWBOAT sign with gold bulb letters mounted between two black fluted smokestacks above the white round pilothouse structure, with the hotel lobby entrance at left and a powder-blue Cadillac parked at right — 1968. The bulb-spangled SHOWBOAT marquee riding between the twin stacks, the pilothouse below, and a Cadillac at the curb. Photo: Butch, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0

The Showboat in the 1970s with its new 19-story hotel tower, tall vertical roadside sign, and long frontage — The 1970s: a 19-story tower rises behind the riverboat — some 500 rooms by 1976. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

The white Showboat hotel tower in 1975 with SHOWBOAT letters across the roofline, an American flag above, the Hotel Showboat sign on a black smokestack, a gingerbread veranda with Showboat Bowl, Keno, Bowling, and Casino signs, and 1970s cars parked in front — 1975: SHOWBOAT across the roofline, HOTEL SHOWBOAT on the stack, and KENO · BOWLING · CASINO down the veranda. Photo: Dan Davis, 1975 · Photographer credited; source under research — displayed at the site owner's direction; removal on request

The circular Showboat crest on the facade. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

The Showboat hotel tower and neon-lined entrance glowing at night in the 1980s — Night on Boulder Highway, 1980s — neon from curb to roofline. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

1998–2000 — Sold, and unnamed

Harrah’s buys Showboat Inc. for $1.2 billion — for Atlantic City, mostly — and in March 2000 sells the aging Las Vegas original for $23.5 million to local investors, keeping the Showboat name for itself. In September 2000 the boat becomes the Castaways, a name borrowed from a long-gone Strip tiki resort, and gets a tropical refit, a seafood house, and a website: castaways-lv.com — the address you’re reading right now.

2001–2004 — Taking on water

Post-9/11 tourism collapses onto a mountain of debt. Chapter 11 comes in June 2003; on January 29, 2004, a bankruptcy court orders the doors shut overnight. Six to eight hundred employees lose their jobs; thousands of league bowlers lose their house.

Elevated view of the entire Showboat complex around 2000, showing the tower, low-rise wings, and parking — The full complex in 2000, just before the name came down. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

The property during its 2000 renaming, with new Castaways signage and old Showboat signs visible at the same time — 2000: Castaways letters going up while Showboat signage still stands — the changeover, mid-sentence. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

The renamed Castaways hotel tower in 2000 photographed above the retained Showboat Hotel Entrance sign — The Castaways tower, 2000 — the old SHOWBOAT HOTEL ENTRANCE sign still on duty below. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

2006 — Seven a.m., eleven seconds

After Station Casinos buys the site — a three-way deal totaling $33.7 million, largely for the land and its grandfathered gaming license — the tower is imploded at 7:00 a.m. on January 11, 2006, over the neighborhood that had staffed it.

2008 onward — Trailer Station

To keep the site’s pre-1997 gaming rights alive, a 40-foot trailer with exactly 16 slot machines opens on the dirt lot for eight hours every two years — one employee, one portable toilet, no running water. Locals nickname it “Trailer Station.” It works.

The damaged Castaways sign standing before the partially demolished bowling-center facade in 2006 — 2006. The broken Castaways sign in front of the bowling center that once held 106 lanes. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

The empty Castaways hotel tower standing behind demolition debris where the casino low-rise had been — The gutted tower waiting behind the cleared low-rise, late 2005. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

Remnants of Showboat and Castaways signage lying in the cleared demolition site in 2006 — After the implosion: sign fragments in an empty 26 acres. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

The Castaways roadside marquee still standing beside the flattened, cleared property in 2006 — The roadside marquee outlasted the building. 2006. Photo: Roadsidepictures, via Flickr · CC BY-NC 2.0

2018–today — The boat becomes an address

Developer Chi Chi Bengochea — whose father dealt blackjack here — builds the 344-unit Showboat Park Apartments for the city’s workforce; first residents move in January 2021. On the corner parcel, Station opens the Wildfire on Fremont casino on February 10, 2023. The name still gets you there: the pool, the park, the apartments — they all still say Showboat.

The Showboat never had a website. Now it has one.

If you sailed on her — sign the Ship’s Log.