Tribute to Jackie Gaughan

A digital billboard paying tribute to the late Jackie Gaughan is displayed on the on-ramp to U.S. 95 north from Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard on Thursday. Gaughan died in the early morning on Wednesday. (Justin Yurkanin/Las Vegas Review-Journal)

A digital billboard paying tribute to the late Jackie Gaughan went up near downtown Las Vegas on Thursday.

Gaughan, hailed as “A Las Vegas Legend and Pioneer” on the sign, died Wednesday at age 93.

Services will be at 11 a.m. Monday at St. Viator Catholic Church at the corner of Flamingo and Eastern.

Gaughan, who once controlled 25 percent of the downtown gaming market and owned portions of some of the city’s most historic casinos, spent his last years in the place he loved: an apartment atop the El Cortez, overlooking the city he adored.

“Downtown is where Jackie belonged,” Michael Gaughan said Wednesday of his father.

“He lived a full life,” Michael Gaughan said. “He may have been the most licensed person in the history of the state. He had a great sense of humor. All his life, Jackie Gaughan believed in handshake deals and that a person’s word was his bond.”