BOOM: Stardust Implosion

In light of the pending implosion of The Harmon, Vegas Inc. decided to list the Top 10 Vegas Strip Hotel implosions. I love implosions and figured this was a good excuse to visit the youtube archives.

For the next couple of weeks I’ll grab video of these 10 Las Vegas Strip Hotel implosions. We go to #8 on the list – The Stardust.

Opened: July 2, 1958

Closed: Nov. 1, 2006

Imploded: March 13, 2007

When it opened, the Stardust was the largest casino in Nevada and the largest hotel in the world, with approximately 1,000 rooms.

Howard Hughes moved to purchase the hotel in the 1960s, along with many other Strip casinos, but the U.S. government blocked the deal, fearing a monopoly was taking shape. Instead, Delbert Coleman purchased the hotel and later sold it to Argent Corp.

In the 1970s, members of Stardust management were implicated in skimming cash from the casino’s cage in a Nevada Gaming Commission investigation. Officials believed the operation was run by mobster Franky “Lefty” Rosenthal, setting the background for the film “Casino.” The mob reign behind the Stardust ended in 1983 when federal agents conducted a raid on the property and Rosenthal was banned from Nevada casinos for life.

The casino’s next owners, Las Vegas businessman Al Sach and Herd Tobman, were also suspected of running a skimming operation after acquiring the casino. They too were removed as owners and fined $3.2 million, a state record at the time.

In 1985, the Stardust was sold to Boyd Gaming, which closed it in 2006 to make way for a $4 billion project called Echelon. That project stalled before major construction got underway, but not before the 32-story Stardust was imploded on March 13, 2007, with 428 pounds of dynamite.