Hughes inspired Becker to help build Las Vegas

An article in the Aug. 16 issue of the Las Vegas Review-Journal about the death of Barry Becker Jr. included an interesting Hughes tidbit that I was not aware of.

It turns out Ernie Becker, grandfather of the deceased, came to Las Vegas in 1952 based on reports that Hughes was planning to move Hughes Aircraft Company from L.A. to Las Vegas. At the time, Hughes was in the process of acquiring 25,000 acres on the west end of the Las Vegas Valley with this goal in mind. Hughes acquired the land but never moved his aircraft company here. Instead, after Hughes died, his heirs built the Summerlin master-planned community on the property.

Becker, however, made the most of his move. He bought 250 acres in the vicinity of Decatur and Charleston boulevards and built subdivisions totaling 1,400 houses. Ernie Becker and other Beckers continued to build houses, apartment complexes and shopping centers, primarily on the valley's west side, into the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

The first house my wife and I owned in Las Vegas was a Becker-built house near Cheyenne Avenue and Rainbow Boulevard.

Thanks to Paul Winn for spotting this Hughes tidbit toward the bottom of the obituary. I had missed it.