While much is known about Howard Hughes’ life and death because of his eccentricities, it is difficult to assess the value of his many accomplishments. He was reclusive, extremely wealthy and used his wealth, among other things, to bring much needed change to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada.
In 1966, Hughes moved into the Desert Inn hotel in Las Vegas. He exceeded his planned reservation and created discord with the hotels mob connected owners who threatened to “throw him out.” He began efforts to purchase the hotel. Having successfully gained ownership of the Desert Inn for $13.5 million, Howard Hughes claimed the penthouse as one of his many residences and established the headquarters for his business ventures there as well.
He purchased many lucrative businesses in this desert paradise, which at the time was notorious for mob holdings and corruption of various sorts. His great wealth provided the opportunity to influence the political climate of the city. His goals of changing the pervasive gaudy environment to one of elegance, eliminating the mob culture and establishing business legitimacy in Las Vegas were all eventually realized.
In his later years, he was seriously ill and saw very few people, other than his immediate staff. Hughes’ was physically impaired to such an extent it became necessary to use his fingerprints as a means of identifying his body at the time of his death. As one might imagine, people many people came out of the woodwork to lay claim to his massive estate.
The estate was eventually split between twenty two cousins and Hughes Aircraft was awarded to the Hughes Medical Institute. While his ways were strange to say the least, his accomplishments in all that he undertook cannot be minimized.
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