Howard Huges owned many Las Vegas casinos, but he never built one. And yet his legacy is evident on the Strip, on Fremont Street and throughout the State of Nevada. What was Howard Hughes's ever lasting contribution to casino gambling in Nevada?

Howard Hughes secretly arrived in Las Vegas in the predawn hours of Thanksgiving Day in 1966. A private train dropped him off at a railroad crosssing on the northern outskirts of town; then, a stretcher carried the sixty-one year old Huges into a waiting van, which whisked him to the Desert Inn. A dolly wheeled him into the hotel throught a side door. He rode the service elevator to the top floor and did not set foot outside his bedroom until the day before Thanksgiving in 1970. In four whirlwind years, Hughes became Nevada's biggest casino owner, acquiring the Desert Inn, the Sands, the Frontier, the Castaways, the Silver Slipper, the Landmark in Las Vegas and Harold's Club in Reno. He became the state's largest private employer, the state's largest private property owner, and the state's largest owner of mining claims. (Excerpted from The Players by Jack Sheehan.)

Hughes first casino purchase was the Desert Inn. Not wanting to offend the eccentric billionaire, the casino waited a considerably polite period of time before asking Mr. Hughes when he was going to leave. The top floor of the Desert Inn housed the penthouse suites reserved for the high rollers. The casino was losing a fortune by not being able to accomodate the whales. Well, Hughes took the not too subtle hint, but instead of moving out, he bought the casino.

Before Howard Hughes was literally "rolled" into town, casino owners were individuals and they were known as "gamblers". Nevada Gaming law required that all casino owners had to be licensed by the Gaming Control Board. That meant that publicly held corporations could not own casinos. Otherwise, every shareholder would be required to be licensed, which, of course, is not possible. Hughes lobbied for and was successful in changing the gaming law in Nevada to permit casino ownership by publicly held corporations. This opened the door to the established players in the Hospitality Industry to invade Nevada and build the mega-resorts we know today. Casino ownership was transferred from the seedy players that horded into the state when they were thrown out of their home towns to the giant corporations that are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. That is Howard Hughes's legacy to Las Vegas.

Fed up with the nearby atomic testing, bad business deals and wallowing in his paranoia and eccentricities, Hughes decided to leave his desert oasis. Stretcher bearers hoisted Hughes's frail body down the Desert Inn's interior fire escape. A station wagon ferried him to Nellis Air Force Base, and from there a private jet flew him to the Bahamas. He stayed a while in another casino hotel in Freeport. From there he moved to Vancouver, London, Nicaragua and Mexico. Hughes died in 1976 of liver failure. In a book about Howard Hughes amazing life, his four years in Las Vegas might just be a chapter. But Hughes's impact on the skyline of Las Vegas is staggering.