Vegas Myths Debunked: Howard Hughes Bought the Silver Shoe Just to Tarnish Its Sign

Posted: January 3, 2025, 06:55 pm.

Last updated: January 1, 2025, 07:28 PM.

editor's Note: “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes new entries every Monday with a bonus Flashback Friday edition. Today's entry in our ongoing series originally ran on May 1, 2023.

it's already ours The second Howard Hughes myth, And there are still heaps left to destroy. Supposedly, the world-renowned aviator and movie tycoon began his famous purchase of Las Vegas casino hotels, partially freeing the Strip from the shackles of Mafia ownership and paving the way for the era of corporate ownership, all while Thank you for the huge shoes, Silver Shoe.

The 12-foot-tall, 17-foot-wide, revolving heel was designed by former Disney animator Jack Larson Sr., who worked for the Yesco Sign Company, where he also created the pop-art lamp for Aladdin. Patterned after one of his wife's pumps, Larson's silver slipper sign boasted 900 incandescent lightbulbs on the shoe and 80 on the bow. It was established in late 1954 or early 1955 and deployed until the resort closed in November 1988.

According to the story, the shoe, located directly across the Strip from the Desert Inn, which Hughes had picked up since arriving in Las Vegas the day before Thanksgiving in 1966, was too bright for Hughes to sleep at night.

According to the story, the Silver Slipper declined Hughes' request to dim the shoes, so he bought the Casino Hotel and dimmed it himself. Due to this, the eccentric billionaire became interested in buying hotels in Vegas and he bought a lot of hotels.

This myth has appeared in the legitimate publications “The Strip: Las Vegas and the Architecture of the American Dream” (2022) and “When the Mob Ran Vegas: Stories of Money, Mayhem and Murder” (2005). Los Angeles Times.

As is often the case with urban myths, it comes in other forms as well. In the current version of the Wikipedia entry for the silver slipper, Hughes believes that the slipper's toe “could allow a photographer to take pictures of it.” After several attempts to request Slipper to close, according to the entry, “Hughes purchased the casino, turned off the lights, and destroyed the spin system.”

Both of those stories are complete nonsense – Complete nonsense,'' Paul Winn, director of corporate records for Hughes from 1957 until Hughes' death in 1976, reported Casino.org. “I don't know where they get this stuff.”

Of course, as always with Hughes, the truth was as strange as the fiction. We will consider that later.

Four main problems of this story

As for all other accounts of their time in Winn and Hughes' Desert Inn penthouse suite, they kept the curtains drawn 24/7.

1. The light from a casino sign or a photographer's lens could not possibly penetrate them. Hughes, no doubt suffering from mental illness by that time, closed curtains (and windows) to protect himself from pollution, sunlight, germs, eyes, and nuclear fallout from the regular underground explosions at the nearby Nevada Test Site. demanded. According to Winn, Hughes tried to get President Lyndon Johnson to stop those trials, but even he was not powerful enough.
2. The dates are wrong. Hughes' shopping spree began in March 1967. He did not buy the Silver Slipper until April 30, 1968.
3. The Frontier sign was big and bright It may therefore have troubled Hughes more than the Silver Slipper.
4. We know where the myth came from – one wrong Las Vegas Review-Journal Report which was later withdrawn.

gossip and rumors

Well, it was like turned away

On April 21, 1967, RJ Gossip columnist Earl Wilson wrote: “Associates say (Hughes) requested him to dim the lights of the Silver Slipper. He refused. His messengers say he asked them to negotiate the purchase of the Slipper. Instructions have been given, so this will not interfere with his sleep now.

Almost a full year later, as Hughes's Silver Slipper purchase was closing, Wilson published what journalists refer to as the “Non-Reformation Correction”, in which he wrote, without actually acknowledging that he was its originator. Rejected his previous false claim. (There was no Internet to catch it then.)

He's not turning it off, and he's not turning the lights off,” Wilson wrote about Hughes' impending Silver Slipper acquisition on April 17, 1968. “They may burn even faster than before.”

Wilson's follow-up proved to be such a hidden reference to most readers that it could not even be linked to his original report, which they continue to remember.

what really happened

The Desert Inn rented out its entire upper floor and the floor below to Hughes and his associates for 10 days. Check-out time came and went, and Hughes didn't move. DI co-owners Mo Dalitz and Ruby Kolod were nervous. They had already promised suites to high rollers for New Year's Eve.

Maheu told PBS in 2005, “Hughes never intended to buy a hotel – he just wanted a place to sleep.”

As mentioned earlier, the truth is usually as strange as Hughes's imagination.

On March 27, 1967, Hughes and Dalitz agreed to a price: $13.2 million, far more than DI was worth. Hughes then purchased the Sands for $14.6 million, the Frontier for $23 million, the El Rancho Vegas for $7.5 million, the Castaways for $3 million, the unfinished Landmark for $17 million, and the Silver Slipper for $5.4 million. .

“He bought the silver shoe because it was available, for no other reason.” Vinn said Casino.org. “I know. My name was on the gaming license because I was a corporate officer.

Asked if he knew why the slipper sign eventually stopped rotating, Winn replied: “My guess is that the rotating mechanism broke, and probably no one bothered to fix it.”

recent history

The Silver Slipper was sold to hotelier Margaret Allardy in 1988 for $70 million. He demolished it and converted it into a parking lot for Frontier, which he also owned. Fortunately, the slipper and its symbol were saved and placed in Yesko's Boneyard, which later became the collection of the Neon Museum.

As yet one more A variation on the myth that Hughes ordered concrete poured into the rotation mechanism to jam it. According to the Neon Museum, no solids were found in the mechanism when they received the sign.

In 2009, the museum restored the sign and installed it along with other vintage Vegas neon signs in the median of Las Vegas Boulevard North, where it still shines today.

Watch a new “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday Casino.org. visit VegasMythsBusted.com To read the previously debunked Vegas myths. Do you have any suggestions for a Vegas myth that needs to be debunked? Email corey@casino.org.