Golden Gate Hotel & Casino

The Golden Gate Hotel & Casino stands at 1 Fremont Street, at the corner of Fremont and Main in downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, and is the oldest hotel still operating in the city. It opened in 1906 as the Hotel Nevada, just a year after the railroad auction that created the Las Vegas townsite in May 1905, and served travelers arriving on the Union Pacific line at a time when the town was a tent-and-timber railroad stop. The original building was a modest two-story structure with a lobby and rooms, in the district that became Fremont Street, the city's first commercial center. The hotel was renamed the Sal Sagev, which is Las Vegas spelled backward, during the following decades, and later became the Golden Gate in the 1950s as the downtown casino district grew around it. Over the years it was renovated and expanded, and it is now a small casino hotel inside the Fremont Street Experience district rather than a large resort. What visitors see today is a compact casino floor with a heritage character, a lobby that nods to the building's age, and historical photographs that trace the property's changes. The hotel is also known for its shrimp cocktail, a downtown tradition that has been served for decades and reflects the era of cheap casino food specials. Architecturally the Golden Gate is a low-rise commercial hotel rather than a grand monument, and the original 1906 structure has been altered and absorbed into later additions, so its value is more historical than visual. Unlike a museum it has no formal curated route, but the location, at the western end of Fremont Street, places visitors at the start of the old downtown walking route past neighboring early casinos. Entry is free, though gambling on the casino floor is limited to guests aged 21 and over.