This Flamingo Hotel menu
is from the early days, when Bugsy Siegel still strolled the gambling pits, according to the eBay seller making it available.
The seller's adds, "The Casino actually opened on Dec. 26, 1946, but was shortly closed to complete construction requirements for the hotel and reopened March 1, 1947. I believe that this is one of their first and earliest of their hotel menus and was utilized around this time line...
The hotel, when it was first opened, was called The Flamingo--as the big-size Flamingo logo on the front cover of the menu shows--when it reopened it was called The Fabulous Flamingo.
The seller makes several other astute observation about the menu, "note the entire back cover with its very large full cover pictures of the original Flamingo. Also, note the palm trees pictured on the back cover, it was rumored that
Bugsy bought and paid for them several times over. The supplier would
deliver them--get paid for them--then drive them away and bring the
same palm trees back again as different trees for payment, creating construction cost overruns, which helped Bugsy get
into financial trouble with his backers. The palm trees pictured on the back of the menu look freshly planted and trimmed.
Here is a bit of addition history/nostalgia about the Flamingo courtesy of the seller: The Hotel was named after Virginia Hill Bugsy Siegel's girlfriend; she was called "Flamingo" because of her eye-catching red hair and long legs...and so the Hotel was nicknamed The Flamingo.
Whatever the story behind it's founding, this is a very attractive and displayable early Flamingo menu.
