Jackie Gaughan, pioneer of Vegas casino industry, dies at 93

3/26/2014

 

LAS VEGAS — Jackie Gaughan, known to downtown Las Vegas as the guy who wore wacky ties and kept his pockets stuffed with coupons for a free lunch at his El Cortez Hotel and Casino, died March 12 in Las Vegas from complications of old age, his son Michael said. He was 93.

A kingpin of the original part of Las Vegas known as Glitter Gulch, Mr. Gaughan at one point owned or had interest in about a quarter of the downtown, including the Golden Nugget, Union Plaza, and Las Vegas Club.

“He was one of the fathers of downtown Las Vegas,” said Boyd Gaming Corp.’s Bill Boyd, his friend and former business partner.

He earned the nickname “Mr. Downtown Las Vegas.” He died two days after leaving his home in El Cortez, the hotel he owned for many years, his son said.

John M. Goshko

WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — John M. Goshko, a journalist who opened the Washington Post’s first bureau in Latin America and became one of the newspaper’s stalwarts covering diplomatic affairs and foreign policy for more than two decades, died Sunday in Washington. He was 80.

The cause was kidney failure, said his son, Matthew Goshko.

Mr. Goshko joined the Washington Post’s metro staff in 1961 and advanced quickly to the foreign desk. The paper sent him to establish a bureau in Lima, Peru, in 1965.

In addition to his stories about the death of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Argentine-born revolutionary who was executed by Bolivian forces in 1967, Mr. Goshko wrote extensively about the destabilizing effects of U.S. arms trading with Latin American governments.