LV, NV - Museums

Colder today and we’re ready for some museums. And, yes, Las Vegas does have some museums, the major one is the Nevada State Museum located in a new area called the Springs Preserve. This is in the heart of the city and is where Las Vegas began. If you want to relate the history of any town, area or state in the Desert Southwest, you’ve got to concentrate on water and it certainly is true with Las Vegas too. This area is called the Springs Preserve because - get this - it is where the springs were located. Here is where prehistoric tribes settled, through here Spanish conquistadors and traders made their way from Sante Fe to Los Angeles, through here the railroad built a line from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles followed by Interstate 15 and finally, here is where the early settlers built their homes and ranches. All because there was what most thought was plentiful water, an ‘inexhaustible supply’ said brochures luring settlers to this place.

The Springs Preserve, built in 2005 and owned and operated by the Las Vegas Water District, is 180 acres composed of several museums, a large open desert historical area around which there are several trails, meeting rooms, a large outdoor theater, a playground a wetlands area, some botanical gardens and other facilities. We wanted to see the springs and the history around them along with the Nevada State Museum.

Expecting showers in the afternoon, we started out visit on the trails, natch, and walked around the Preserve viewing pit houses of the prehistoric settlers, the cabin of the water caretaker and the old spring house.

The Preserve is built around where these springs used to be. And ‘used to be’ is the operative phrase because they are no more. This ‘inexhaustible supply of water was soon exhausted and the citizens had to find other sources if they were to survive. Firstly they built wells and there were several model water wells within sight here and then this pictures showed how the citizens of Las Vegas treated their inexhaustible supply of water. And, they wondered why they ran out of water.

They also hired a caretaker to monitor the water supply to protect it from vandals. There were still some remnants of the caretakers home built in the early part of the 20th century, a chimney and a shed where the families kept chickens.

While we were walking along the trails, we noticed a particular type of scat that we had not noticed before. We asked a museum curator who was also out for a walk what it was and she told us it was fox. She also told us that she only knew that because when the museum was being built, the resident fox, displeased with the incursion into his territory, deposited a lot of this scat on the sidewalks around the building. Cute, huh?

After we had walked around the trails viewing the wells, the old pump house, the caretakers home and some remnants of pit homes where the original inhabitants lived we moved inside to the museum. Here the displays really stressed the importance of water and how much has been used in the growth of Las Vegas. First a graph of the growth. Isn’t this amazing? look how the population took off after WWII.

Next a display of how much water has been used each decade to further this growth.

The colorful part is the growth of population by decade since 1950. The blue cylinder represents the water usage during each of these decades.

There was also a slot canyon that you could stand in on a platform and a flash flood flowed all around you. It was pretty dramatic and designed to impart a lesson. First the thunder, then the lights blinked to imitate lightening, then the water appeared around a large rock in front of us and began to build. It splashed as it grew and thundered down the canyon below us. Of course, we got a few splashes but nothing like being in a slot canyon during a real flash flood.

Then we wandered into the actual Nevada History Museum to be greeted by their resident mammoth.

I was impressed with the size of the Icthyosaur bones they had high on the wall above us. I’m not sure what kind of bait you’d use to catch this but I know you’d need a strong line to reel him in. This species was at least 25’ long.

This museum had loads of info about the growth of settlement in Nevada, the Native Americans, the miners, the railroaders, the Mormons, the ranchers and finally a room devoted to the 50’s and the growth of Nevada as an entertainment center. We watched some old clips of the Rat Pack with Sinatra, Lawford, Davis, Bishop and Martin clowning and singing, and there was a neat display of the costume head pieces worn by the showgirls in the 60’s. Imagine wearing one of these to work.

Finally, we realized it was 4:00 and time to leave. We had seen and learned a lot about he history of Nevada. Well worth our time.