Reggie Rader remembers when Las Vegas ended at Sunset Road, giving way to endless stretches of undeveloped desert.

He recalls outings with friends, when they would cross the street from his home near Jones Boulevard and Twain Avenue to build forts in the sand and hunt for lizards.

The family moved to Henderson when Rader was in middle school. He’d often play in pickup basketball games at a local park, and one day hewitnessed an unexpected conflagration.

In August 1993, Rader stood with a group of neighborhood kids at the corner of Valle Verde Drive and Wigwam Parkway, watching in fascination as flames engulfed the towering Stratosphere under construction on the Las Vegas Strip. For three hours, the structure blazed like “a giant roman candle” against the desert sky — a spectacle that wo

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