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Vegas Retold

The history of Four Queens

Opened June 2, 1966

Four Queens’ white hotel tower and vertical sign above its curved casino frontage, with palms along Casino Center Boulevard.
Four Queens’ hotel tower, vertical sign and casino frontage on May 14, 2013.

Doug Kerr / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Image source· License

Commons-provided upright, resized rendition of the original photograph; no additional editorial alteration. Responsive overview and index displays may crop the presentation.

Four Queens opened its casino on June 2, 1966, at Fremont Street and Casino Center Boulevard. Its first hotel rooms followed that summer. The project began with an eight-story hotel of 115 rooms and suites, then grew through later additions into the larger Downtown hotel seen today.

The four daughters behind the name

Founder Ben Goffstein named the property for his four daughters, linking each to a playing-card queen: Michele to spades, Benita to clubs, Faith to hearts and Hope to diamonds. The name made a family association part of the casino’s public identity. Opening promotions were extravagant, with prizes that included a house and a diamond ring; the Nevada State Museum also preserves a later giveaway of stockings.

Changes in leadership

Goffstein died the year after the opening, and partner Tom Callahan took over. A later leadership change brought Jeanne Hood to the presidency after her husband David died in 1977. The museum identifies her as one of the relatively few women then leading a Las Vegas hotel and casino.

The Elsinore era

The early 1970s brought the Elsinore corporate era. Originally part of Hyatt, Elsinore became independent in 1979 and kept its headquarters at Four Queens. UNLV’s history describes bankruptcies in 1985 and 1995 as the company struggled with wider investments and debt. The hotel’s ownership story was therefore part of a larger corporate gambling business, extending beyond Fremont Street.

TLC and a Downtown sister property

Terry Caudill agreed to buy the property in 2003. Nevada’s licensing record marks TLC Casino Enterprises and Caudill’s ownership from October 10 that year. Four Queens remains under TLC, which also owns Binion’s across Fremont Street. They are sister properties at separate sites.

Renovating the North Tower

The hotel continues to change within that established identity. In August 2025, general manager Tim Lager reported completion of a $24 million North Tower renovation. The operator now describes rebuilt rooms with new plumbing and air conditioning, expanded bathrooms and sound-dampening windows. This was a renovation of the existing hotel, continuing the long-running Four Queens name at 202 Fremont Street.

  1. Nevada State Museum: Four Queens origins and its namesakes

  2. Over50Vegas: transcribed contemporary 1966 Four Queens reports

  3. UNLV: Elsinore Corporation records

  4. Nevada Gaming Control Board: Four Queens ownership record

  5. Four Queens: completed North Tower room renovation

  6. Four Queens general manager: North Tower work completed in 2025

  7. Four Queens: current operator and sister property

  8. OpenStreetMap: current Four Queens building

  9. Wikimedia Commons: Doug Kerr’s Four Queens photograph

What remains uncertain

  • June 2, 1966 is the casino opening. Transcribed contemporary reports place the first hotel rooms later that summer; no exact hotel opening day is asserted here.
  • Museum and archival accounts use 1972 for the early Elsinore era; the regulator records an April 1973 ownership/licensing start. These milestones are not silently collapsed into one exact acquisition date.
  • The retained historical 2013 photograph predates the North Tower’s later room renovation. It is a dated view, not a promise that every detail remains unchanged.
  • The historical photo’s raw pixel orientation differs from its displayed portrait dimensions. The selected Commons upright resized rendition and exact stored bytes are explicitly documented.
  • The main illustration is based on an undated user-supplied postcard and interpreted in daylight; it does not establish the current facade or access.
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