If anyone is interested in the history of long-distance telephony in the US, the PBS documentary "Transistorized!" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0381663/) (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA97634694AC92A93) has a great explanation into Bell Labs' long-standing interest in the transistor going back to the use of vacuum tubes in signal amplification on the long stretches of telephone cable. The documentary is also really cool since it shows you the inner lives of Shockley, Brattain and Bardeen leading up to the discovery.
I was surprised to see Las Vegas as such a tiny blip, before remembering its history is still very recent. Founded in 1905, incorporated in 1911 (and was still decades away from its boom).
Las Vegas as a city wasn't really feasible until after the completion of the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead in 1936 about 30 miles away. You can't have a city without water.
An earlier boom in the 1880's was fuelled by the citrus industry and ended with the freezes of 1894/5. Tourism also played a role to such a degree that Roosevelt's Rough Riders were quartered at the Tamap Bay Hotel prior to the invasion of Cuba. That boom is what gave enough population density to run service as far down as places like Conway [or Orlando itself] by 1910.
The The Coconuts boom ended with the onset of the Great Depression...at least for those who believe it soft started with events like the Florida land crash and the Boll Weevil infestation across the South. Two post WWII booms were triggered by the wide spread availability of residential air conditioning and mortgage derivatives respectively.
