Bugsy Siegel

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (Feb 28, 1906 to June 20, 1947) was behind many of the early Large Scale developments in Sin City.  He was born in Brooklyn, NY.  He formed a gang and was responsible for many petty crimes in his early days.  In 1937 he moved to California to try and develop gambling rackets.  Throughout his time in California he had many extra marital affairs with Hollywood actresses.  This granted him access to the inner circle.

On a trip to the East, Bugsy drove through Las Vegas and had a dream of turning it into a "mecca".  Siegel went back to Las Vegas backed by Al Capone to establish the Trans America race wire service.

Siegel had a lavish dream to build the Flamingo.  He knew very little about construction and the project went over budget (estimated cost $1M actual over $6M).  The mob bosses who back Siegel where so upset, that they had a meeting in Cuba and discussed if they should order a hit on Siegel.  He opened the Flamingo in Dec 26, 1946 unfinished.  It remained open for two weeks and later shutdown to complete construction.

Bugsy Siegel's eventually failed Hill stole all of his money and fled to Paris.  June 20, 1947 a mob hit-man, went to Beverly Hills and shot Siegel with a M1 Carbine as he was reading the Los Angeles Times.