smithsonianmag.com
How the Dazzling Las Vegas Strip Rose Up From the Desert
In 1829, a group of explorers led by Spanish merchant Antonio Armijo moved west toward Alta California through the arid Mojave Desert-the ancestral lands of the Southern Paiute people. A young scout named Rafael Rivera discovered a particularly verdant area full of grassland irrigated by a natural spring; this lushness soon inspired the place's…