These photos show the original Exchange Hotel, and its later incarnation as the Buffalo Hall. Built by Edward F. Mitchell and Govenor-to-be Dr. Henry Connelly in 1850, the Exchange Hotel was popular for poker and raucous parties. After 1855 it was owned and managed by the Kitchen brothers, who were part of an influx of American pioneers to Las Vegas. Dr. L.V. Briggs of Boston who was visiting said of the interior, "these rooms are unplastered, being boarded on the sides, but only part way to the top so everything can be heard from the surrounding rooms."* What the boarders must have heard were all night card games often frequented by cattle barons such as John Chisum, Wilson Waddingham, Thomas B. Catron, Tranquilino Luna, Lucian B. Maxwell and many others. The corral in the rear housed twenty to one hundred wagons every night.

During the Civil War, Govenor Connelly temporarily moved the executive offices of the Territory into the Hotel after surrendering Santa Fe.

Later, after surviving the fire of 1912, this building housed the Las Vegas Lumber Company, which was established by Charles Carscallen in 1900. Only a small section of this legendary building remains after a 1959 fire.

*F. Stanley, The Las Vegas Story NM,pg.79