Developer Del Webb rose from humble origins in Fresno to fame and fortune. Today on KVPR’s Central Valley Roots, the story of a man who helped invent the Las Vegas we know today, and the concept of the planned retirement community.
Del Webb was born in Fresno in 1899. He had dreams of being a professional baseball player, but wound up working as a carpenter. He left California for Arizona after contracting typhoid fever, and wound up starting a construction company. He eventually found success with big contracting jobs for the federal government.
In 1945 he bought a stake in baseball’s New York Yankees, becoming a co-owner of the franchise which won 10 World Series before he sold it in 1964 to CBS. Webb was also a Las Vegas pioneer. Mobster Bugsy Siegel hired him to complete construction on the Flamingo Hotel. Webb’s company would go on to own the Sahara, the Mint, and other gaming properties. He was the first to bring corporate ownership to Las Vegas casino market.
Perhaps his biggest achievement was the birth of the planned retirement community – exemplified in Sun City in Arizona, and his Kern City development in Bakersfield. Webb's company also built the nearby Park Stockdale and Stockdale Estates developments in Bakersfield. He even built a high-rise hotel and office building in downtown Fresno at M and Tulare Streets – Del Webb’s Townhouse, which now is owned by Fresno County.
There was also darker side to Webb’s success – one of those big government contracts involved building the Poston Relocation Center, a concentration camp in Arizona to hold Japanese American citizens during World War II.
