VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: Saguaro Cactuses Grow Here

Posted on: January 13, 2025, 08:04h. 

Last updated on: January 13, 2025, 09:53h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

A recent documentary series about Las Vegas from CNN aimed to set the facts straight, once and for all, about Sin City. So you would think they wouldn’t get one of their facts about Las Vegas dead wrong before the series even premiered. Yet the promotional artwork for “Las Vegas: The Story of Sin City” prominently features a Saguaro cactus.

This is an ad for a recent documentary series from CNN, a news organization with hundreds of fact-checkers. (Image: max.com)

Saguaros can grow in Las Vegas, but only if they’re grown for several years in their native habitat (or an approximation of it) before being replanted — and then only if they’re watered as regularly as palm trees and other nonnative flora.

That’s how Arizona Charlie’s grows the ones outside its casinos on Decatur Boulevard and Boulder Highway.

Among the dozens of NFL-licensed souvenirs you could buy advertising the first Super Bowl in Las Vegas were these colorful Saguaro earrings. (Image: NFL.com)

But the only places Saguaros grow in the wild on Earth are in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona (where their blossom is the state wildflower), the Mexican state of Sonora, and the Whipple Mountains and Imperial County regions of California.

Las Vegas is located in the Mojave Desert, which is too dry for any saguaros and, in the winter, too cold for the younger ones.

Las Vegas averages about four inches of rain a year, half as much as the Sonoran Desert, and occasionally dips below freezing, something the Sonoran rarely does.

The Mojave borders the Sonoran just south of Kingman, Ariz., and the sudden appearance of Saguaros there marks the transition.

Myth Understood

It’s easy to assume that none of the designers of Saguaro-adorned Vegas merchandise and artwork has ever lived in the Mojave Desert. And, that even if they visit Vegas often, they behave like most tourists and don’t spend much time outside — other than walking along Las Vegas Boulevard to a different casino resort.

This postcard from Arizona Charlie’s Casino in Las Vegas features two Saguaros. Two things we know about them for certain is that they were planted elsewhere and they’re hooked up to a watering system. (Image: Arizona Charlie’s)

The only view many tourists get of the actual Mojave is from their airplane window, thousands of feet too high to make out many details — such as the complete lack of Saguaros!

However, it’s also possible — and we prefer this explanation — that project managers at CNN and the NFL aren’t as uninformed as that.

This souvenir T-shirt is size X-tra Wrong. (Image: eBay)

Maybe, because they’re bright enough to have been hired by such elite institutions, they realize that the Saguaro isn’t an icon of Vegas.

Maybe they even pointed the error out to their supervisors, who responded that they knew, too, but to go ahead and use the graphic anyway.

And maybe that’s because the Saguaro is still the most recognizable natural symbol of the American Southwest, regardless of whether it’s found everywhere in the region.

Hell, it’s in the background of every “Road Runner” cartoon we all grew up on!

So just let it go, OK, Harrison? We’re in the business of marketing to preconceived notions here, not the business of getting every little detail correct.

Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Visit  VegasMythsBusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.