Kentucky's Open City

Dean Martin. Frank Sinatra. Jerry Lee Lewis. When their stars shined the brightest, these men held a national audience and played in the biggest hotspot of the day....Newport, KY. Anyone who arrived in Newport had an opportunity to brush shoulders with these celebrities, as well as some of the region's most notorious gangsters.

Initially run by local gangsters, the town grew to attract the attention of national crime syndicates. In the late 1950's, vice was so open in this small Northern Kentucky town that national magazines such as Time, the Saturday Evening Post, and Esquire published stories that shocked the nation.

Join our tour to learn how these events unfolded, and how our local gangsters inspired the design of casinos in Las Vegas.