We’re normally excited to be breaking news, but this time, the news is that we were wrong.

The first of several photographs taken on February 26, 1993 looks upward at a secret escape ladder leading up to a boarded-up trap door beneath a closet in Bugsy Siegel’s suite at the Flamingo Las Vegas. (Image: Darrin Bush/Las Vegas News Bureau Collection, LVCVA Archive)

The garage at the rear of the Oregon Building, where a chauffered getaway car waited, 24/7, whenever Siegel was in residence. (Image: Darrin Bush/Las Vegas News Bureau Collection, LVCVA Archive)

Hit Job on History

We were positive we had the goods to bust the story of the secret exit mobster Bugsy Siegel had built into his penthouse suite at the Flamingo as a myth. We were never surer of anything than the “Vegas Myths Busted” column we ran on Monday, November 3.

Even Bugsy historians agreed with our premise.

Supposedly, a trap door in Room 44000 of the Oregon Building concealed a ladder leading to a tunnel that exited into a secret garage, where a chauffeured getaway car waited whenever Siegel was in. The story is enshrined in the plaque erected by then-Flamingo owner Hilton Hotels after it demolished the building in 1993.

So why did no Bugsy associate ever mention the secret escape route? Why did this story appear nowhere in print until 1992, a year after the movie “Bugsy” was released and Hilton was heavily promoting the Bugsy association to tourists?

And why were there no photos of the trap door, ladder, tunnel or garage on any website or in any online newspaper archive? We searched for a whole year and came up empty.

Tunnel Vision

But the story was true. ALL OF IT.

This secret tunnel led from the bottom of the ladder to the garage. (Image: Darrin Bush/Las Vegas News Bureau Collection, LVCVA Archive)

A couple of hours after posting our column, we were messaged by the former curator for the Las Vegas News Bureau.

Photos do exist, Paco Alvarez informed us. He had seen them. They were taken a few months before the Oregon Building was demolished in 1993, before the internet was accessible to the masses.

And you’re seeing them, for the first time anywhere on the web, right now.

Fighting misinformation is the only reason we started “Vegas Myths Busted” 170 columns ago.

This time, we spread it and there’s no excuse.

We immediately took this week’s column offline, but not before 500 people saw it. We hope those same 500 are seeing this now.

We sincerely apologize. No one can kick us harder than we’re kicking ourselves right now.

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