Primm, Nevada, was once a beacon in the desert for travelers driving on Interstate 15 from Southern California to Las Vegas — a family-friendly destination, and the first place to gamble right over the Nevada border. The proliferation of casinos across America, however, has sent the town on a long decline. Today, Primm is nearly a ghost town, where the soundtrack is primarily cawing crows and trucks speeding by on the highway.
Gaming historian David Schwartz of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas says the tribal casinos that opened in Southern California in the last few decades offered "a lot more convenience. Instead of having to drive all the way to Primm, you could just drive a much shorter distance right up the road."
In Primm's heyday in the 1990s and 2000s, travelers flooded in for the cheap rooms and casino gambling. Rodeos, boxing matches and concerts by big artists like Aretha Franklin offered entertainment and attractions like a roller coaster (The "Desperado"), monorail and log flume ride appealed to families too.
"That was a time of big dreams," Schwartz says. "And when Vegas itself was thriving so much and just expanding and exploding, why not? Because it seemed like this would last forever."
Two of Primm's three hotels, Buffalo Bill's and Whiskey Pete's, closed in recent years. The roller coaster and the monorail are stopped on their tracks. Primm's outlet mall, which was once among the top in the country, has only one store left — a thrift store.
A few months ago, the company that operates the casino-hotels in Primm, Affinity Interactive, said it would be closing the third and final hotel in the town, the Primm Valley Resort & Casino, and laying off hundreds of staff. Hearing that news, the Primm family — which still owns the land this town is built on — decided to step in, teaming up with the Nevada-based convenience store chain Terrible's to try to resurrect this town.
"We've got to make one of the greatest comebacks in Nevada history," says Cory Clemetson, grandson of the town's namesake, Ernie Primm. "If you can turn a ghost town into greatness again, there's not anything you can't do. And so why not go for the challenge, why not us?"
A model for Primm's resurrection might lie right up the road, in Las Vegas — a city that has continually reinvented itself through the decades to keep luring in crowds. Tourism there is almost as high as it's ever been, despite the fact that casinos have popped up all over the nation.
"What Vegas did differently was they invested a lot of money in buildings, things like the Venetian, like Mirage, like Sphere, sports teams coming here now, Allegiant Stadium, T-Mobile Arena," Schwartz says. "All that stuff gives people a reason to come to Vegas instead of going to a casino closer to where they live."
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