The Mob Museum Marks 60 Years of Caesars Palace With a Night of Living History

On August 6, three people who lived the story firsthand will sit in a historic downtown courtroom and talk about the resort that changed what Las Vegas was allowed to look like.

A Panel in the Old Courtroom

The Mob Museum occupies a restored 1933 federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas, and on the evening of Thursday, August 6, its second floor courtroom will host a conversation about the resort's founding, described by the museum as a look at how Caesars Palace was not thrown together overnight. The evening runs from 7 until 8 p.m., with a book signing to follow, and it costs nothing for members or with a regular museum ticket.

The panel brings together people with direct ties to the resort rather than outside commentators. Jay Sarno Jr., son of the man who built Caesars Palace, will share family recollections of his father's opening night vision. Bill Weinberger Jr., a former Caesars vice president of casino marketing, is expected to recall the celebrities and, at times, underworld figures who passed through in the resort's early decades. Rounding out the panel is David G. Schwartz, a gaming historian and UNLV professor whose research grounds the stories in documented Strip history.

How Jay Sarno Rewrote the Strip's Rules

Caesars Palace opened to the public on August 5, 1966, built for a reported 24 million dollars, which made it the single largest investment on the Strip up to that point. Where earlier resorts leaned on Old West or ranch motifs, Sarno bet on an imagined Ancient Rome, complete with a 14-story, 680-room tower, marble pools, towering fountains, and staff dressed as centurions and Cleopatra.

Sarno reportedly dropped the apostrophe from the resort's name on purpose, wanting every guest to feel like an owner of the place rather than a visitor to someone else's palace. The three-day opening celebration alone burned through an estimated one million dollars, with roughly 50,000 glasses of champagne and two tons of filet mignon served to guests, while singer Andy Williams became the first headliner in the resort's Circus Maximus showroom.

Sixty Years, Kept in Photographs

Much of what we know about that opening week survives because someone pointed a camera at it. Archival collections built by the Las Vegas News Bureau and now held in the LVCVA Archive preserved images of the toga-clad staff, the fountains, and the crowds who came to see Sarno's vision made real, and Las Vegas Weekly drew on that same photographic record for a recent retrospective marking the anniversary.

That is the quieter half of this story for anyone who cares about how a city remembers itself. A themed resort like Caesars Palace can be renovated and expanded so many times that little of the 1966 building remains, but a well kept photo archive lets a room, a fountain, or a costume survive the wrecking ball in a way the building itself cannot.

From a Fountain Jump to a Colosseum Residency

The resort's six decades produced moments that outgrew Las Vegas entirely. On December 31, 1967, daredevil Evel Knievel attempted to clear one of the property's fountains on a motorcycle, a jump that ended in a crash and serious injuries but made his name nationally known.

Later chapters were gentler on the body if not the budget. The Forum Shops opened in 1992 as a 240,000 square foot themed mall, and the Colosseum arena, built for Celine Dion's residency beginning in 2003, eventually hosted 1,141 of her performances, a run reported to have grossed more than 681 million dollars, among the highest grossing residencies ever tracked by industry figures.

Six Decades of Caesars Palace, Briefly

A quick timeline of the moments the Mob Museum panel and recent retrospectives keep coming back to.

1. August 5, 1966: Jay Sarno's Ancient Rome themed resort opens with a three day, million dollar celebration.
2. December 31, 1967: Evel Knievel attempts his fountain jump on a motorcycle and is seriously injured.
3. 1969: Sarno and partner Stanley Mallin sell Caesars Palace for a reported 60 million dollars.
4. 1992: The Forum Shops open as a 240,000 square foot themed retail addition.
5. 2003: The purpose built Colosseum opens for Celine Dion's Las Vegas residency.
6. 2011: The acrobatic show Absinthe premieres on the property.
7. August 6, 2026: The Mob Museum hosts Sarno's son, a former marketing executive, and a UNLV historian to mark 60 years.

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