I had a hard time believing The Mirage was real when it opened in 1989.
Not the steel and concrete part of the shimmering Strip megaresort, which raised the stakes for every occupant of Las Vegas Boulevard and turned many heads with its $620 million construction cost funded by high-interest bonds. After interviewing a notebook full of gaming industry analysts and Steve Wynn’s competitors, I was convinced that the big-idea man of his generation had fallen in love with his vision at the expense of fiscal sobriety.
The gaming industry buzzed with the previously unheard-of $1 million-a-day breakeven point just to keep the doors open. Wynn had outdone himself and in the process likely undone himself.
But once the doors did open, they might as well have been taken off the hinges. The Mirage was an immediate must-see place for a generation of tourists. Wynn’s name was burnished in the Las Vegas pantheon as a big dreamer who managed to make the illusion real.
I ate a lot of crow as a newspaper columnist over my skeptical assessment of The Mirage’s chances of financial survival. (Of course, in four decades as a columnist, I’ve eaten enough crow to write a cookbook.)
At a time when even the cleanest casinos generally smelled like ashtrays, the Mirage was piña colada scented and redolent with tropical plants. For Wynn, of course, the place also smelled like money.
Then there was the volcano. Ask just about any Las Vegas visitor about how incredible it seemed the first time they saw it erupt. Some of that sense of wonder will likely still be present in their voices.
An enormous aquarium behind the hotel’s front desk presaged even larger aquatic attractions to come. In time, The Mirage had its own dolphin exhibit that stirred controversy, drew crowds, and imprinted its island theme at a whole new level.
The grand illusionists Siegfried & Roy performed with their white tigers in the showroom in an act that needed no translation and never seemed to go out of style.
Wynn and company would go on to bigger and some would argue better developments. There was Treasure Island during the fleeting Vegas-as-family-fun incarnation of the Strip and the comparatively palatial Bellagio, which set a new standard of megaresort excellence on the Boulevard.
It also spurred an entertaining battle of egos between Wynn and his rival-turned-frenemy Sheldon Adelson. The two tweaked and tormented each other often in the press before following their fortunes to Macau.
Time wasn’t kind to the grand illusionists in the showroom or the great illusionist in the chairman’s suite.
Siegfried and Roy’s long Las Vegas run ended in 2003 after one of Roy Horn’s tigers mauled him on stage.
Wynn sold out to MGM in 2000, then built new jewels on the Strip before being driven from the industry in a Me Too-era sexual-harassment scandal that rocked Wynn Resorts International and reverberated through the entire casino industry. MGM, in turn, sold the property in December 2022 to Hard Rock International for $1.1 billion.
Through all that, there was The Mirage. It survived new trends and tastes and changes of ownership. The Mirage shut down Wednesday morning after nearly 35 years, with its amazing volcano erupting for the last time.
In an admirable Las Vegas tradition, it will be replaced by something even wilder – in this case, a 700-foot-tall guitar-shaped Hard Rock hotel.
The Strip’s best casino-resorts are good factories for their employees, money machines for their owners, and memory portals for millions of visitors. They provide good times and relief from an increasingly chaotic world. Despite the inherent cynicism of the casino, I think it’s the reason that so many get so sentimental about places filled with games in which the odds are set to favor the house.
One thing I’ve learned from spending most of my life watching Las Vegas is that, with the possible exception of Wayne Newton, nothing here lasts forever.
My money’s on you, Wayne. Given some of my previous predictions, I realize that might not provide you with much comfort.
