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Katherine Duncan, president of the African American Cultural Society, stands behind the bar in the closed Moulin Rouge in Las Vegas. The Moulin Rouge became the first integrated casino in Las Vegas when it opened in 1955. AP Photo Claude Trenier recalls segregation prior to 1960 in Las Vegas. Trenier, 81, a singer, began performing on a segregated Las Vegas Strip in 1948, when he wasn't allowed to sleep or eat in the hotels where he sang. AP Photo

Monday, February 26, 2001
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

BLACK HISTORY: '50s Las Vegas recalled

Moulin Rouge was city's first integrated casino

Darkness overcomes the showroom and the old man's eyes wince to see what time has stolen. Booths that once held adoring crowds, a stage that hosted famous black entertainers. Dust covers them now, a thick layer creating a haunted, musty smell that moves through the dingy building.

It's harder now to imagine the crowds, the entertainers who made this place -- the Moulin Rouge -- a hit with blacks and whites in 1955. But Bob Bailey still remembers, still hears the sweet music he helped create.

"It was a window in time. So beautiful, so beautiful," he says almost in a whisper.

It was here that history was made, first as the only integrated casino in Las Vegas during an era when people of color were welcome in hotel showrooms and gambling halls only as hired help. Later blacks called city and state leaders to the Moulin Rouge, and in this almost forgotten building, the decision was made to desegregate the Strip in 1960.

Singer Claude Trenier remembers when Las Vegas was known as "The Mississippi of the West."

"We do our show, then had to go out by the pool. They didn't allow no blacks in the main showroom," he said.

Trenier, 81, his brothers and some friends, known as the Treniers, were one of the first black musical groups to perform on the Strip.

They came to the Flamingo Hotel in 1948. Trenier, who grew up in Mobile, Ala., knew what to expect. "You just had to take it."

In the '40s and '50s, black performers like the Treniers, Sammy Davis Jr., Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole headlined at casinos on the Strip, but were quickly ushered out the back door and forced to stay in west Las Vegas boarding houses.

"You making them a lot of money, but you couldn't go in the hotels," Trenier says, shaking his head.

He remembers singer Dorothy Dandridge dipping her foot in a hotel pool, then the hotel draining the pool.

"I often wonder why they were that way," he says. "I swore then that I'd never be in a position where I was bitter."

Bailey, 74, was a dashing 28-year-old in 1955. Already an entertainer in New York, he was recruited to come to a segregated Las Vegas and co-produce a show at the new Moulin Rouge, just three blocks from downtown.

In May that year, the first integrated casino opened, becoming an instant magnet for entertainers like Frank Sinatra and Harry Belafonte. Many in Las Vegas tell stories of Strip casinos being abandoned after midnight because almost everyone headed to the Moulin Rouge.

"It was as stylish and upbeat as any of the hotels in town," Bailey says. "What was so great about it was, it was such a first-class operation."

But it was not to be. After six months, the Moulin Rouge closed its doors. Rumors flourish as to why: financial problems, Strip casino owners working to shut it down.

In 1960, the closed casino became famous again as blacks summoned city and state leaders there and demanded desegregation of the Strip. The state already had legalized interracial marriages and blacks were being hired for city jobs. But the Strip hadn't changed.

Desegregate or we will march down the Strip, Bailey remembers telling the leaders. They agreed.

Today, a cold wind makes its way through the Moulin Rouge and Bailey shudders from the chill, or maybe it's from the dreary state of this failing building that changed him forever.

Graffiti covers the walls, insulation droops from the ceilings and discarded furniture and rolls of carpet litter the floors. The showroom where Bailey created his shows and served as master of ceremonies is almost unrecognizable, gutted by time and neglect.

"It breaks my heart when I see what it is and what it could have been," Bailey says, staring at the abandoned room. "It hurts my heart."

After his stint at the Moulin Rouge, Bailey went on to become Nevada's first black television personality and used his prominence to encourage social change.

"That six months turned my whole life around," he says.

A developer bought the Moulin Rouge and wants to restore it to its old fame, but there have been buyers before, and many doubt a casino in a run-down section of town near homeless shelters would work today.

Bailey steps out of the darkness into the rain pelting the pavement of the lonely parking lot.

"There's a million stories in this building," he says, glancing back at the casino and the legacy he helped create.