Benny "The Cowboy" Binion

Las Vegas, Nevada

Photos taken November 23, 2005 in Downtown Las Vegas near the Binion Hotel and Casino.

 

In 1984, five years before Benny Binion’s death at age 85, sculptor and cowgirl Deborah Copenhaver was commissioned by the Binion family to create a 15-foot-tall 2,800-pound bronze statue of the family patriarch on horseback. It was placed outside one the Horseshoe hotel-casino’s parking structure at the corner of Casino Center Drive and Ogden in downtown (one of the boundaries of Block 16, the original Las Vegas red-light district).  

The statue was an apt symbol of the gangster and casino owner, whose nickname was “the Cowboy.” Binion was born on a farm in Texas, learned at a young age from his father how to trade horses, owned ranches in Montana where he raised rodeo horses, and was influential in getting the National Finals Rodeo to move to Las Vegas from Oklahoma City in 1985; that same year, he was named ProRodeo’s Man of Year by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.   

The statue remained on the downtown street corner for 23 years. In March 2008, shortly after he purchased the property for $32 million, Terry Caudill (owner of the Four Queens) agreed to a request from Michael Gaughan to move the statue to South Point.

Reportedly, Gaughan, son of another legendary downtown casino owner, Jackie, bought the statue from the Binion family for $1, with the intention of displaying it right outside the Equestrian Center at South Point.

As the South Point arena hosts rodeos, barrel racing, horse shows, and related events year round, it’s perhaps the most appropriate place in Las Vegas for the larger-than-life bronze statue of a mounted Benny “the Cowboy” Binion.

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