By VERNON ROBISON
The Progress
It has been a landmark month for the Virgin River Casino. The casino has been celebrating the 30th anniversary of its original grand opening which took place in September of 1990. A small hotel on the site opened just a few months earlier than that, in May of 1990.
“Things have obviously changed a lot since those days,” said Lex Hall, who was recruited back in late 1989 to head the management team that opened the then-new hotel and casino.
Before coming to Mesquite, Hall had been working in a small casino in Las Vegas where he had been for 22 years. He said it was quite a change of pace coming to the Virgin River.
“Back then there wasn’t much to Mesquite at all,” Hall said. “The Virgin River was the only thing north of the freeway. The rest was all just empty desert. The road came up from the freeway and it ended right in our parking lot. There was nothing else here.”
The hotel had opened in the spring with 152 rooms. The casino started small with only about 16,000 square feet of space. Back then there was just a casino area and a small coffee shop.
“We opened with only six table games and a ‘Big 6’ wheel,” Hall said. “Other than that it was just all coin slots.”
The Virgin River started with only around 120 employees. Today there are 538.
Mesquite resident Bertha Sandoval was one of those original employees. Sandoval’s family had moved to Mesquite from Mexico when she was young. She attended Virgin Valley High School, graduating in 1988, and went straight into the workforce.
She started with a job at the old Peppermill Casino in Mesquite. But when Virgin River opened, she applied to work in the coffee shop there and got the job.
Sandoval has been there ever since, working in the restaurant side of the operation. She has filled various positions over the years including server, cook, cashier, hostess and more.
Sandoval reminisced about how much more of a small-town feel there was back in the early days. She said that there were a lot of colorful characters in town back then. For example, one of the regular bar customers at the Virgin River was a local rancher and avid cowboy.
“He would actually ride up to the back of the casino on his horse, tie up the horse back there and come in to the bar,” Sandoval remembered. “One time, after he left from the bar, he got pulled over by the police out in front of the casino for being intoxicated.”
Business was good for the Virgin River from the very beginning. It wasn’t long after the initial opening that work began again to start expanding. A whole series of expansions took place in the years following.
Local resident Roberto Murataya remembers every one of those expansions. Murataya has worked as a porter and in facilities and maintenance at the Virgin River for 29 years.
Murataya rattled off a list from memory of all of the expansions that have taken place to the hotel and casino over the years. It was a long and detailed list. For example, the buffet was added in 1994. The Bingo hall came a year or two later. The bowling lanes were built in 1998. And there were many more.
Murataya remembered, during one expansion, that both the Bingo games and the buffet had to be relocated to a large event tent in the back parking lot for a time.
“When it rained, the water ran right through the tent and got things pretty messy,” Murataya said.
Murataya added that he has loved living in Mesquite for the past three decades. He came by himself from Mexico, just to get a start on the job. Later, he brought his wife and family here.
“When my wife came here and first saw Mesquite, and how small it was, she said, ‘Take me back to Mexico!,” Murataya said laughing. “But moving here, it was a great place to raise a family. There were no drugs, no gangs. We were happy here.”
Diane and Beryl Gussi are sisters who have been working in the Virgin River Hotel housekeeping since the year after it opened. They also reminisced about the experiences they have had and the customers that they have served.
“The customers have been great,” said Diane. “We have had some of the nicest people come here. It has been a good job.”
The hotel has gone through many expansions over the years, too, they said. And each time a new building of rooms was opened, it was a huge task to get them all furnished and ready to occupy.
Hall said that every able-bodied employee was called in to help during those chaotic times.
“No matter what your job was, we were all in there getting ready because the deadline for opening those rooms was looming,” Hall said. “We were assembling beds and making them up and setting up other furniture. It was a big job and everybody helped out.”
Though 2020 has been a challenge to all casinos in Nevada, the future seems bright for the Virgin River. The casino just completed another expansion earlier this year. It added another 10,000 square feet to the gaming floor including space for more machines and a brand new bar. Plans are now in place to open a new steakhouse at the Virgin River. The opening date on that restaurant is projected for about a year from now.
Hall said that he has never been sorry that he made the move from Las Vegas to Mesquite.
“It has been an exciting place to work, with wonderful people,” Hall said. “We have loved it in Mesquite. It has been great working with all of the Mesquite gaming management, employees and customers all these years! We love Mesquite Gaming.”
