The Las Vegas Sun's History of Fabulous Las Vegas site has been a massive undertaking to offer an all-encompassing look at the colorful history of Las Vegas through a variety of multimedia features, including text, photos, video, audio, Flash graphics and 360-degree steerable panoramas. The goal was to show the transformation of the city from its humble birth as a railroad way-station to its present day status as the "Entertainment Capital of the World."
With the help of veteran Sun writers, intensive research at UNLV's Lied Library, and archival TV footage from the Las Vegas News Bureau and KLAS TV, the Sun New Media team was able to put together a converged narrative that speeds readers through the fascinating journey of Las Vegas — from its billing as the "Gateway to the Hoover Dam," to its notoriety-inducing, fireworks-producing home for atomic tests, and finally to its rise as the gambling mecca of the universe.
Highlights include:
- An interactive map featuring renderings of 40 current casinos on the Las Vegas Strip and Downtown and 40 old casinos in the same spots. Each casino is clickable with a pop-up window providing several photos, quick facts, opening/closing dates, misc. info., and a casino description.
- On the interactive historical map, you'll find a clickable drop-down timeline that shows keys events for every decade from 1900-to-now, with photos or slideshows also depicting the key moments/individuals of the time period. Another tab clicks over to entertainers, which tell the story of some of the top performers of the era. To see a non-flash timeline, 1829 to 2008, go here.)
- Twenty-five project-specific stories that highlight key entertainers, such as Elvis and the Rat Pack, mobsters (Bugsy Siegel), and Las Vegas events, such as Atomic Testing and the World Series of Poker.
- An 11-part documentary that depicts Vegas' unconventional rise to the biggest city founded in the 20st century.
- About 1,000-plus historic photos are incorporated throughout the project and are full-screen enlargeable.
- A Mob Ties interactive shows the connection between the important Las Vegas mobsters and the U.S. cities from which they came. It also cross-references the Vegas mobsters' relationship to one another.
- A half-dozen video stories that include topics ranging from Elvis tribute artists to the New Age of Vegas.
- Steerable 360-degree panoramas of the Neon Boneyard, where old neon casino signs are displayed.
- 150-plus Sun archived stories that provide a look into the newspaper's coverage of historic events as they happened.
- Phudios (photos embedded with audio clips) of historic casino owners like Benny Binion and Sam Boyd talking about issues such as how atomic bomb testing helped Las Vegas and how Nellis Air Force Base became a viable military training base.
I'm in awe of the steerable panoramas.