VIDEO VAULT | Stardust co-founder Tony Cornero was no stranger to vice

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Last week's story was about the valley's first "carpet joint," the Meadows in 1931.

It was run by Frank and Louis Cornero with backing by their brother, who is the subject this week.

Anthony Cornero Stralla (AKA "The Admiral" and "Tony the Hat") was already adept at catering to people's vices by the time the 1930s rolled around.

"Cornero, who had a lot of experience in Los Angeles, was going to bring some of that trade up here," said UNLV gaming research director David Schwartz in 2016.

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"But he didn't stay for long, because he ended up going back to L.A. and resuming his bootlegging," added Mob Museum Director of Content Geoff Schumacher.

Cornero had been operating gambling boats just off the coast of Los Angeles.

"One of Cornero's ships, this was the flagship of his fleet, was the S.S. Rex," said Schwartz.

The rich and famous would ferry out to the Rex and gamble, dealing with periodic raids. When Earl Warren, later chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, became governor of California, he shut the gambling ships down, which is when Cornero returned to Las Vegas.

"So, when he came on land, he named [his downtown hotel] after his boat so that no one would make any mistake that this was Tony Cornero's place," said Schwartz.

"The Rex casino operated for a couple of years, and Cornero was the operator," explained Schumacher. "And that was really his effort to get involved in gambling in Las Vegas."

The Rex was in a building still familiar today, first becoming the Apache, then the Horseshoe and now simply Binion's.

"Cornero was not a member of any organized crime family, but he survived an attempted hit, and he knew people," explained Schumacher.

"Well, I don't think you get to run gambling boats in Southern California without having some kind of connections," reasoned Schwartz. "So certainly—and he also had a past as a bootlegger—so certainly he would be part of that conversation."

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In the early '50s, Cornero began development on a new type of Las Vegas property.

"The Stardust concept, which was to appeal to very middle-income gamblers and offer rooms very chiefly, massive number of rooms," said Schumacher. "That became the model really for most of the resorts that were built in Vegas thereafter."

Cornero never saw his Stardust open.

"Yeah, he was shooting craps at the Desert Inn, had a heart attack and dropped dead," wraps up Schwartz.

Anthony Cornero was 55 at the time of his death. The Stardust finally opened in 1958 with backing from John Factor, brother of cosmetics king Max Factor, and mobster-gone-legit Moe Dalitz.

It closed in 2006 and is now the site of the soon-to-open Resorts World.