When a Vegas hotel tried to kick him out, he bought the place.

When a Vegas hotel tried to kick him out, he bought the place.

Faced with a huge tax bill in California, he decided to move to Las Vegas in late 1966, arriving by private train car and taking up residence on the top floor of the Desert Inn. When the hotel’s owner tried to evict Hughes and his staff, who didn’t gamble, in order to free up rooms for high-roller guests, Hughes decided to buy the place (technically, he purchased a long-term lease), for $13 million. Afterward, he went on a Vegas buying spree, snapping up other hotel-casinos, an airport and airline and various tracts of undeveloped land. Also, because Hughes, by then a recluse who never left his Desert Inn penthouse, wanted to watch his favorite old movies on late-night TV—and the city had no all-night stations–he acquired a local TV station of his own. After four years in Vegas, during which time he became one of Nevada’s biggest employers and private landholders, he left abruptly in 1970. He spent the final six years of his life living in hotels in the Bahamas, Nicaragua, Vancouver, London and Acapulco.