The Horseshoe is housed in the space the iconic Higbee's department store occupied for the better part of the 20th century, and you'll find tributes to it throughout the place. "We were looking to preserve the historical integrity throughout the entire process," says Rock Gaming principal Jeff Cohen. "A lot of extensive research went into getting the period down to detail." Keep an eye out for these five nostalgic nods.
1 | The Public Square and Prospect Avenue entrances had to be updated to meet building codes, which meant removing the revolving doors, but the original frames were left behind and refurbished. "By pulling them out and putting in some other kind of opening, you would have taken away from the significance," Cohen says.
2 | The Horseshoe commissioned new chandeliers modeled after the originals that lined Higbee's main aisle, stretching from one entrance to the other. Each of the new 8-foot-in-diameter fixtures took 16 man-hours to install.
3 | The store's floor-to-ceiling columns were retained and updated, and the floral plasterwork at the top of each column and along the ceiling beams was restored. Wood paneling that matches the art deco design was added to the base of each 22-foot-tall column.
4 | The railings along the stairs and in the casino's two bars, Vintage 51 and Legends at Horseshoe, were made from castings of the original brass handrails found throughout Higbee's.
5 | Many of the casino's banks of slot machines are topped with lighted signs inspired by the department store's architecture. Casinos often use these signs to echo their theme. "Our theme was the Higbee Building," Cohen says. "We wanted to model [the signs] after the building itself."
