El Portal Theatre
310 Fremont Street,
Las Vegas,
NV
89101
310 Fremont Street,
Las Vegas,
NV
89101
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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
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Recent comments (view all 31 comments)
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.
The theater can be seen in this 1950 photo from the LAPL:
http://jpg1.lapl.org/pics47/00043387.jpg
1973 photo of the El Portal Theatre.
View link
I think I liked Fremont Street better without the canopy. The light show is not too interesting after you see it a dozen times.
Here is a night version of the 1973 street photo.
1982 Photo
This is a 1970 ad.
Here is another ad
http://tinyurl.com/y8hgz8y
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.
From the 1940s a postcard view of Fremont Street along with the El Portal Theatre in Las Vegas.