Golden Gate Hotel & Casino Marks 120 Years in Las Vegas
Las Vegas’s oldest continuously operating hotel marked its 120th anniversary on Jan. 13, 2026.
LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE:The Golden Gate Hotel & Casino, which opened as the Hotel Nevada on Jan. 13, 1906, celebrated the milestone this week with a downtown party featuring giveaways, complimentary birthday shots and commemorative merchandise. The event underscored the property’s unusual longevity in a city famous for reinvention, and it drew attention to the building’s role in the earliest chapter of Las Vegas hospitality and gaming.
Jeff Victor, vice president of operations for Circa Hospitality Group, called the property foundational to the city’s identity. "This is, literally, the birthplace of hotel tourism and casino as we know it today in Las Vegas", he said, stressing the Golden Gate’s symbolic value at the intersection of Fremont and Main streets.
Though the hotel has been expanded and modified across decades, visible traces of its 1906 footprint remain. Seven narrow second-story windows facing Fremont Street and 11 along Main Street trace the outline of the original structure, and a group of rooms still marketed as the "Original 10" occupy part of the earliest accommodation block.
Preservation and Operational Changes
The Stevens brothers – Derek and Greg – purchased the property in 2006 and have since woven historic preservation into a broader downtown casino strategy that includes The D and Circa. Derek Stevens said the pair saw a strategic advantage in owning a property that could not be easily replicated. "No one else was going to be able to copy it", he said, adding that the Golden Gate offered a distinctive platform for their return to Las Vegas.
Restoration work after the acquisition produced small architectural discoveries that highlight the hotel’s layered past. Contractors uncovered a compact kitchen off Main Street that dates to an early addition; the space is now framed by exposed brickwork and several decorative archways retained as visual features. The former open-air courtyard that now houses the electronic gaming pit once allowed guests to look down into a central space; when it was enclosed, the casino’s first surveillance was reportedly performed by a worker lying on a rolling mattress peering through a pane of glass.
Victor reflected on the building’s survival: "The fact that [Golden Gate] still exists is, part miracle, I guess. When you think about all the souls that have walked through here and all the things this building has seen, and to have it reveal itself in little chunks here and again, is terribly exciting."
The property also figures in Las Vegas’s neon history. As the Hotel Nevada, it hosted the second neon sign erected in downtown Las Vegas, outpaced only by the now-demolished Overland Hotel. That visual legacy remains part of the Golden Gate’s appeal to visitors seeking a connection with the city’s formative years.
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Downtown Revitalization and Brand Strategy
While honoring its past, the Golden Gate has adapted to changing customer preferences. In 2025, the casino removed all live-dealer table games and transitioned to electronic table games across the pit, a move framed by management as a response to shifting player behavior. The property also introduced a nightly "Night Starts Here" promotion featuring a complimentary happy hour from 6 to 7 p.m., designed to funnel visitors into the downtown evening economy.
The Stevens family’s stewardship of Golden Gate sits within a broader downtown revitalization that has emphasized experiential differences from the Las Vegas Strip: a denser urban core, a focus on heritage and tighter integration between F&B, entertainment and gaming. Observers say properties like Golden Gate serve both as tourist draws and as living artifacts that preserve the city’s origin story while remaining commercially viable.
As Golden Gate moves forward, its mix of preserved features, promotional experimentation and small-scale historic revelations will likely remain central to its appeal. For visitors and Las Vegas historians alike, the hotel is an unusual surviving link to the city’s earliest hotel and gaming era – one that continues to be shaped by both preservation-minded ownership and evolving market demand.
The anniversary adds to a steady stream of recent developments shaping downtown Las Vegas, where heritage properties continue to feature prominently in the city’s evolving gaming and hospitality landscape.
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