The photos and images featured here are only a small selection of the vast trove of materials I’ve collected in support of my doctoral dissertation and its centerpiece, the annotated variorum of Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Although many of the most interesting items, like the fair-copy typescript of the first 6000 words of Vegas from April 1971, or the copies of the Vegas Visitor that corroborate many of the incidental details Thompson incorporates into the text, can’t be displayed here (you’ll just have to read through the annotated variorum!), this gallery is still a good representative sample of the materials and ephemera I’ve gathered. I’ve also included photos of some of Vegas‘ major landmarks as they appeared in 2021, fifty years after Fear and Loathing‘s original publication. I will continue to add items over time (and as copyright permissions allow!). If you have any questions – or corrections – please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Rolling Stone No. 95

The first installment of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, complete with Ralph Steadman’s artwork and a prefatory “Letter From The Editor” by Jann Wenner, is published on 11 November 1971.

Vegas I Splash Page

The first part of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas opened with this now-iconic art by Ralph Steadman who, true to British form, put the steering wheel on the right side of the car.

Mint 400 Decanter, 1971

The 1971 edition of the race’s signature decanter came filled with 100-month-old Jim Beam “Kentucky Straight” bourbon whiskey.”

“Dust Racing” in LIFE

The 14 May 1971 issue of Life featured Bill Eppridge’s photos of the 1971 Mint 400 alongside a short (and unattributed) description of the race and the conditions of the course.

Fabulous Las Vegas Magazine, 20 March 1971

The Fabulous Las Vegas Magazine, a local weekly, covered the star-studded events, big-name acts, and industry gossip. This issue, from the weekend of Thompson & Acosta’s first trip to Vegas, describes a number of the acts referenced in the pages of Fear and Loathing.

Debbie Reynolds & Ape, Desert Inn, 1971

Nikel Nik’s & Mint Casino Chip

Nikel Nik’s, mentioned in passing by Dr. Gonzo during his night on the town with Duke, was situated between the Circus Circus and a 24-hour Denny’s restaurant on the Las Vegas Strip.

This casino chip was in circulation at the Mint in 1971.

Rolling Stone No. 96

The second installment of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas appeared on 25 November 1971.

Vegas Part II, First Pages

Fabulous Las Vegas Magazine, 24 April 1971

This issue of Fabulous Las Vegas Magazine was current during Thompson & Acosta’s second trip to Vegas to cover the National District Attorneys’ Association Third National Institute on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. It, along with issues of the Vegas Visitor, the Las Vegas Sun, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal, are indispensable resources for triangulating a number of Thompson’s references and allusions in Fear and Loathing.

Dr. E.R. Bloomquist, Marijuana

Though most people mentioned in the text had their actual names were redacted for the Random House version, E.R. Bloomquist, keynote speaker at the Drug Conference, did not.

Kimball, Only Skin Deep

In his 17 November 1968 reply to George Kimball’s request for an endorsement, Thompson — no stranger to the risqué — wrote that the book’s unrelenting obscenity “goes so far beyond pornography as to approach a new form of some kind … you may be the founder of the Carnal/Axehandle school.” In a letter to the publisher dated the same day, Thompson flatly refused to “endorse that heap of deranged offal,” calling it “a vicious and intolerable mockery of the whole filth industry.”

Steve Elvin, A Dream

Steve Elvin, the original artist of the cyclopean owl closely associated with Thompson and named on the title page of the fair-copy typescript from April 1971, produced this chapbook of poems in Mexico in 1967. So far as I can tell, it may be the only copy left in existence.

Thompson’s “Self-Portrait”

Thompson contributed to Burt Britton’s Self-Portrait with some original art drawn around a small print of Steve Elvin’s cyclopean owl.

Trident Ceiling Mural, Sausalito, CA

Steve Elvin painted the ceiling and portions of the walls of The Trident restaurant in Sausalito in 1969. The mural remains in excellent condition as of 2021.

Scanlan’s No. 4

Thompson’s breakthrough in Gonzo journalism, “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” appeared in Scanlan’s magazine in June 1970.

Scanlan’s No. 7

Thompson’s witheringly satirical “The Police Chief” appeared at the end of Scanlan’s penultimate issue in September 1970.

Early Celebrity

Thompson’s – or Raoul Duke’s – automythography grew exponentially in the ’70s, fueled in part by features like these.

Thompson Cartooned

Thompson’s antipathy toward Garry Trudeau’s sendup of Thompson in Doonesbury is well-documented, but “Uncle Duke” is far from the only rendering of Thompson in graphic form.

Mint 400 2021

The 2021 Mint 400, fifty years after Thompson’s coverage of the race, was delayed to December due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fremont Street & Former Mint Hotel Tower, 2021

Circus Circus 2021

The midway and the carousel bar overlooking the gambling floor all still exist, though the carousel bar no longer turns and now serves treats instead of alcohol. The vaulted ceiling over the Midway Stage still features circus acts and acrobatic performances.

Ramada Inn, Arcadia, CA

A postcard from the Ramada Inn where Thompson reportedly composed most of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

I-15 to Baker & Barstow

Paradise & Naples

The original location of the Old Psychiatrist’s Club (and possibly the American Dream), sought by Duke and Gonzo on the oracular advice from Lou at Terry’s Taco Stand, is once again vacant fifty years later.

Bay Bridge & Golden Gate

“My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder’s jacket . . . .

There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere.”

Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, CA

Grooves Inspiralled Vinyl

Ray Andersen, mentioned in the Rolling Stone version of Vegas as the manager of The Matrix nightclub, ran Grooves record store until his passing in 2016.

The Matrix

As of 2021, original site of The Matrix nightclub is now a small bar called (of course) the White Rabbit.

The Fillmore Auditorium

Nepenthe Restaurant, Big Sur, CA

318 Parnassus

Thompson’s former San Francisco home still stands on Parnassus Avenue.

San Francisco Sidewalk Graffiti

Found on a San Francisco street in July 2021.

Seal Rock Inn

The Seal Rock Inn, Thompson’s preferred San Francisco retreat for intense writing sessions, still stands “out here at the far end of Geary Street: this is the end of the line, for buses and everything else, the western edge of America.”