The History of the Southern Nevada Building and Construction
Trades Council
In less than 100 years, Las Vegas and Southern Nevada has
been transformed from a desert railroad outpost into the
gambling and entertainment capital of the world. In the
1920’s and 1930’s Las Vegas was a desert town slowly
evolving into a city. The streets were paved and lined with
graceful shade trees, and permanent public buildings such as
schools and courthouses. Then came the construction of
Boulder Dam, later named Hoover Dam, at a site thirty miles
south of Las Vegas. The dam proved to be a significant boost
to Southern Nevada’s economy. During the dam’s construction,
between 1931 and 1935, thousands of construction workers and
their families flocked to Southern Nevada and Las Vegas. Las
Vegas promoted itself as “The Gateway to Boulder Dam” to
attract tourists. The legislation of gambling in 1931 would
attract even more tourists eager to fill the gambling halls
and hotels that had sprung up on Fremont Street. Soon, the
raw gambling halls evolved into more refined casino’s with
the construction of the first resort style hotel and casino
along Highway 91, the future Las Vegas Strip. The opening
that year of the El Rancho Vegas changed everything. The
combination of a casino within a luxury resort hotel was far
removed from anything that existed on Fremont Street. During
the 1940’s came “Bugsy” Siegel’s Flamingo and so on into the
1950’s with the Desert Inn, the Sahara, the Sands, Riviera,
and the Dunes. The construction of the resort industry had
begun and forever changed the flat desert landscape of
Southern Nevada.
With the United States interest in nuclear weapons testing
and technology came the Nevada Test Site, and so did working
men and women to construct and maintain this important piece
of National Security.
City officials and hotel owners were eager to market Las
Vegas as a resort and convention destination in the 1950’s
even promoting the atomic blasts at the nearby Nevada Test
Site as a tourist attraction. The Las Vegas Strip’s
landscape changed even more with the construction of Caesars
Palace, the precursor of the themed mega resorts that
characterize Las Vegas today.
On June 1st, 1960, the Building and Construction Trades
Department of the American Federation of Labor and Congress
of Industrial Organizations chartered the Southern Nevada
Building and Construction Trades Council. An alliance of
affiliated construction Unions representing the hard working
men and women that shaped Las Vegas and Southern Nevada into
what we see today. The combined skills and Union
construction knowledge from dam building to nuclear testing
and mega resort construction can never be paralleled
anywhere in the world.
We recognize as tradesmen and women that the future of
Southern Nevada is as important as the past. We are
dedicated to providing our contractors and business partners
with the best the industry can provide. We have solidified
our relationship with the Southern Nevada Water Authority,
Clark County Department of Aviation (McCarran International
Airport), Nevada Test contractors and the many world class
hotel and casino owners along with the world’s best
contractors with Project Labor Agreements.
We were created to establish consistent labor policies and
procedures that benefit all parties, develop guidelines to
resolve any unforeseen issues, provide opportunities for
construction workers from the Southern Nevada area, support
and promote community outreach and to provide construction
safety, craft training and certification to our apprentices
and journeyman.
