LAS VEGAS, TEXAS. Las Vegas was a small farming community four miles southeast of Big Wells on the old San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad in northeastern Dimmit County. The origins of the town are not known, but it received its first post office in 1913, and was one of several towns that briefly mushroomed in Dimmit County between 1910 and 1920. On July 23, 1915, the Carrizo Springs Javelin reported that one Dr. Luther had interested a group of Belgians in "his Las Vegas tract." That same year Las Vegas was also the site of the first attempt to prospect for oil in Dimmit County. Las Vegas had a population of fifty in 1915, after which no population statistics are available for the community. By 1917 Las Vegas had lost its post office; and in the mid-1940s the site had one dwelling. A 1972 map showed no buildings at the site.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Carrizo Springs Javelin, October 28, 1980. Paul S. Taylor, "Historical Note on Dimmit County, Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 34 (October 1930).

John Leffler