In this week’s Green Felt Journal, I look back at the legacy of Parry Thomas, with an assist from Steve Wynn, who knew Thomas better than most:
It’s no understatement that without Parry Thomas, Las Vegas would look much different today.
Read more: E. Parry Thomas Built This City, One Loan at a Time – Vegas Seven
What I’ve learned is that it is basically impossible to understate Thomas’s influence on modern Las Vegas–not just its casinos, but pretty much everything.
I was lucky to be able to attend the memorial service at Encore on Tuesday. It was a beautiful tribute, with each of Thomas’s children sharing their thoughts. Steve Wynn closed with some remarkably personal thoughts on mortality and Thomas’s influence. I’m paraphrasing much less eloquently, but he said that each of us is someday going to be the “guest of honor” like Thomas, and if people have half as much praise for us as they do for him, we’ve had a good life.
That’s something to think about.