On Dec. 20, 2006, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board awarded a slots license to the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Three years later in May 2009, the Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem opened on the former site of Bethlehem Steel ore field parallel to the Minsi Trail Bridge in Southside Bethlehem.

One hundred years before the Sands Casino was ever conceived, South Bethlehem opened its first "casino," the term for a "building or large room" used for meetings, entertainment and dances - the concept a bit progressive for 1906 South Bethlehem.

Known as the "Casino for the Bethlehems," the 20,000 square-foot, one-story wooden structure was built at one end of a trapezoid-shaped lot - flanked on the north by Broadway, the east by Chestnut Street (now Montclair Avenue) the south by Cress Street and the west by Walnut Street (now Carlton Avenue). The "Bethlehems" included the city of Bethlehem, the Boroughs of West Bethlehem, South Bethlehem and Northampton Heights.

The "Casino," occupied the corner of Broadway and Montclair Avenue, was not to be confused with the well-known "casino" on the nearby grounds of the Holy Ghost Roman Catholic Church at the corner of Cress and Boyce streets.

Coincidently, architect A.W. Leh designed the "Casino for the Bethlehems" and Holy Ghost Church, though neither had anything to do with the other.

South Bethlehem's "Casino" only lasted a few years before it was renamed the "Colosseum," this spelling preferred over "Coliseum." Leh designed the building to accommodate large volumes of attendees at public meetings. He designed the open space void of vertical support columns, which allowed for exhibitions and sporting events. Up until that time, no other structure was capable of holding such "extravaganzas" until the Colosseum - except for the Wyandotte Opera House, located on the corner of West Fourth and Wyandottes streets. However large, the Opera House proved impractical with changes in social interests, the popularity of the automobile and parking.

The exterior appearance of the Colosseum seemed best suited at the seashore with its low profile and fanciful flagpoles. Its location, one block from Five Points' hotels and residential neighborhood, was easily accessible by trolley car service on Broadway.

Four years later in 1910, A.W. Leh designed the five-story E.P. Wilbur Trust Company "Flatiron Building" on the corner of Broadway and West Fourth Street across from the Colosseum and transitioned the area into the new century.

The Broadway location of the Colosseum was popular with patrons who frequented tournaments on four different bowling alleys, enjoyed dining in the restaurant and found the rest rooms convenient.

The vast open space offered roller skating sessions on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and dancing engagements on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In 1916, the structure became famous during an important, history-making "convention."

As president of the largest steel industry in all the Bethlehems, Charles M. Schwab invited members of the Chamber of Commerce to the Colosseum for a dinner to "kick off" the Consolidation of the Bethlehems. At this convention, businessmen impeccably dressed in suits and ties were "packed" at the dinner and heard Schwab announce plans for the "unification" of West and South Bethlehem along with Northampton Heights and the city to form a "Greater Bethlehem."

On the dinner tables in front of each guest, according to The Bethlehem Globe, "two fine cigars wrapped in foil" were contained in neat leather cases upon which was inscribed in gold the name of each guest on the inside, and the words, "Bethlehem, November Twenty-seventh, Nineteen Sixteen" on the outside.

A short musical program was performed after dinner, followed by Schwab's keynote speech, which emphasized the importance of the "Consolidation of the Bethlehems" as one city. Another speech given by two businessmen represented the "new immigrant" South Side. The last speech, delivered by a special committee, unveiled their concept for a steel-and-concrete bridge to replace the deteriorated wooden covered bridge over the Lehigh River.

The program ended with a short film of Schwab at work in New York and at the opening of Steel Field on the corner of North New Street.

During WWI, French immigrant and South Bethlehem resident, James Leonard Elliot, represented the First Ward in Borough Council and was one of its most progressive members. While general manager of the Colosseum, Elliot founded the Lehigh Valley Automobile Annual Show, which at that time was considered the best in the East.

His newspaper advertisements during the 1920s proclaimed the Colosseum, "The Greatest Place of Amusement in the Lehigh Valley." That decade after the modern Hill-to-Hill Bridge opened, the viaduct enabled great numbers of vehicular traffic access to the Colosseum - a venue in the Bethlehem community that included his famous auto shows, annual dances and other activities that continued well into the 1930s.

Although the Colosseum remained a well-known and frequented South Side attraction, the wooden structure went into decline and the facility gradually fell out of favor when the automobile, television and a change of taste and attitude lured prospective patrons away.

Considered a "relic" of the distant past by a new generation, the Colosseum finally closed. Food Fair, a Self-Serve Food Market, was retrofitted into the one-story structure; later, Food Fair was changed to Pantry Pride and renamed Food Lane.

In the 1960s, around the same time the Municipal City Market building on Third and Adams streets and South Bethlehem Brewing Co. on East Fourth Street were demolished, the Food Lane building was razed and the site paved for a parking lot.

In the tradition of Food Lane before it, Ahart's Supermarket opened west of the parking lot at Broadway and Carlton Avenue and served Lehigh University students and neighborhood residents in this section of Bethlehem's Southside.

Although South Bethlehem's original "Casino," the former "Colosseum" is gone, what remains are words and pictures in the minds of those old enough to remember it. The next time you park in Ahart's Supermarket lot, remember - this was the site where Charles M. Schwab initiated the plan for the "Consolidation of the Bethlehems" and made history.