David Hill at The Baffler:
LASTING FOR THREE STRAIGHT DAYS, the grand opening of Caesars Palace in August of 1966 was a spectacle unlike any the city of Las Vegas had ever seen. The owners of the casino, a brash Southern hotelier and gambler named Jay Sarno and his straight-laced partner Stan Mallin, dropped over a million dollars on food and booze, doling out fifty thousand glasses of champagne and two tons of filet mignon to their fourteen hundred guests. Nearly every high-rolling gambler and bookmaker in America, as well as a veritable who’s-who of celebrities, were in attendance. John Wayne, Johnny Carson, Maureen O’Hara, Eydie Gorme—even Grant Sawyer, the governor of Nevada, was on hand. The guest of honor, however, was someone who didn’t drink, didn’t gamble, and didn’t much care for lasciviousness or ostentatious displays of wealth. Yet here he was in the middle of a three-day bacchanal christening a $24 million Roman palace, the most expensive casino ever built up to that point in history, anywhere. His name was Jimmy Hoffa, and he was the president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the 1.7 million-member trucking and transportation union.
more here.