Housed in the former Las Vegas federal post office and courthouse, the building in front of you is the National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement, better known as the Mob Museum. The building itself has mob history: in 1950, Senator Estes Kefauver held hearings here as part of his national investigation into organized crime's control of American gambling. The hearings were televised nationally and shocked audiences who had not fully grasped how completely the mob had infiltrated legitimate business.
Inside, the museum makes a serious effort to treat its subject with nuance rather than glamorization. You will find actual artifacts from the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, including a section of the garage wall with bullet holes still visible. There is a re-created FBI surveillance room where you can listen to actual wiretap recordings of mob bosses discussing Las Vegas casino operations. There are photographs of the cash skimming operations that siphoned millions of dollars from casino counting rooms before the money could be taxed or reported.
The mob did not merely exploit Las Vegas. In important ways, it built Las Vegas. The capital that funded the construction of the Strip's first generation of resorts came primarily from Teamsters pension funds controlled by organized crime. Understanding Las Vegas means understanding that its gleaming towers rose from a foundation of corruption, and that the city has spent sixty years turning that story into tourism.