El Portal Theatre

310 Fremont Street,
Las Vegas, NV 89101

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El Portal plaque

Viewing: Photo | Street View

The El Portal Theatre was built on the site of the old Las Vegas Airdome. It opened on June 21, 1928 with a pre-release screening of Clara Bow’s movie “Ladies of the Mob”.

It was the first building in Las Vegas to install air-conditioning.

Closed in the late-1970’s, it became El Portal Gifts and now serves as an Indian Arts & Crafts store. Some of the decorative interior remains intact, mainly the ceiling beams.

Contributed by Scott Zimmerman

Recent comments (view all 31 comments)

DonSolosan
DonSolosan on January 22, 2009 at 1:16 pm

To be fair, LawMann, it wasn’t a theater back then. All you would have seen was the blade sign and marquee. That’s all I saw, and I never guessed that it had been a theater.

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on April 11, 2009 at 1:16 pm

The theater can be seen in this 1950 photo from the LAPL:
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics47/00043387.jpg

Chuck1231
Chuck1231 on April 11, 2009 at 10:52 pm

1973 photo of the El Portal Theatre.
View link

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on April 17, 2009 at 6:47 pm

I think I liked Fremont Street better without the canopy. The light show is not too interesting after you see it a dozen times.

lostmemory
lostmemory on May 14, 2009 at 6:06 am

Here is a night version of the 1973 street photo.

EricV
EricV on August 29, 2010 at 9:11 am

Trivia – The film “Meet Me in Las Vegas” with Dan Dailey and Cyd Charisse had it’s premiere at the El Portal on February 21, 1956. The stars appeared that same night on Milton Berle’s color tv show direct from the Copa Room of the Sands Hotel. This was the first color telecast from Las Vegas.

DonLewis
DonLewis on December 1, 2010 at 9:09 pm

From the 1940s a postcard view of Fremont Street along with the El Portal Theatre in Las Vegas.

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