After a short coach trip to North Las Vegas the group will board another coach for the 65-mile trip to the Nevada Test Site.  The tour will be guided and narrated by a Department of Energy staff person.  At the entrance to the site the bus drives by the remains of the Army’s Camp Desert Rock and the town of Mercury and from there proceeds on through Frenchman Flat, site of the first atmospheric tests and the Atomic Testing Viewing Area Historic Site.  From there, the coach proceeds to Frenchman Lake, a dry lake where bomb shelter designs and uniforms were tested, and where the Bailey Bridge, a dramatic artifact of the testing era, still stands, along with other structures built for atmospheric testing.  The group then proceeds on to the Yucca Valley and a magnificent view of the dry Yucca Lake.  Among the sites in the valley are Yucca Flat; News Knob; Icecap Ground Zero, the remains of a British underground test; Japanese Village Historic Site; and the awe-inspiring Sedan Crater.  A drive up to the Rainier Mesa affords stunning views of the high country, alkali flats, and the distant Sierra Nevada, as well as tunnel complexes, remnants of Nevada’s early ranching days, and a far view of Groom Lake (Area 51).  The last part of the trip takes the group through the Apple II Historic Site test housing area, through Jackass Flats, and past the BREN tower, with a distant view of the infamous Yucca Mountain concluding the tour. 
Following the Test Site tour, the group will be taken directly to the Atomic Testing Museum for a tour of the permanent exhibit with Nevada State Senator and UNLV Political Science Professor Dina Titus, author of Bombs in the Backyard: Atomic Testing and American Politics.  The group will offer some feedback on the Museum exhibit in relation to the Test Site itself.  After the exhibit tour and review, the group will be transported back to the Riviera to freshen up and dust off any atomic particles before the Welcoming Reception.  (Tour Price $20.  Includes lunch.)

* Because of security paperwork that must be processed for each tour participant, the pre-registration deadline for this tour is September 6th, 2004.  Please mail or fax in the completed form NV-205 Information Required From Uncleared U.S. Citizens for Access to U.S. Department of Energy, Nevada Operations Office Facilities with your registration.  Call Linda Kay Quintana at the same number if you have questions about the form or procedure.

Photo: Nevada Test Site subsidence craters. Courtesy of the National Nuclear Security Administration

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This three-part coach and walking tour begins with a trip to the city’s historic west side, long the segregated area of the city and later the base from which the local civil rights movement grew, led by UNLV Special Collections oral historian Claytee White.  From there, the group will tour the Fremont Street Experience, part of the original Las Vegas Townsite auctioned off in 1905, and the older north end of the Strip up to Caesars Palace and The Mirage with UNLV urban historian Eugene Moehring, author of Resort City in the Sunbelt:  Las Vegas, 1930-2000.  Hal Rothman, UNLV western and environmental historian, and author of Neon Metropolis:  How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century, will  narrate the last portion of the tour, which will cover several of the newer hotels including the Bellagio and Paris down to New York New York and the MGM Grand at Tropicana Avenue, and Luxor and Mandalay Bay at the far south end of The Strip. Special features of the tour will include the distinctive styles of the tour guides, and some behind-the-scenes looks at the operations of casino megaresorts.  (Tour Price $25.)
Photos: Left - Serving locals and tourists Fremont Street housed casinos, bars, liquor stores, banks, and retail shops, 1940’s. Right - Union Pacific Station was publicized as the first air-conditioned station anywhere, 1940. Photos courtesy Special Collections Department, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
 

CCSN Professor of History Michael Green, co-author with Eugene Moehring of the Las Vegas Centennial History and interviewer for an oral history of a Boulder City pioneer, will lead the group on this tour of the “Eighth Wonder of the World” and the surrounding area.  A coach will take the group on the short trip (approximately half an hour) to historic Boulder City, a town built for the dam workers, a few of whom will reflect on their experiences during a short coffee break at the historic Boulder Dam Hotel, also the site of the Boulder City/Hoover Dam Museum.  From the high point of Boulder City, the coach makes the dramatic drive down to Lake Mead and the Dam.  The group will be taken on a full tour of the dam, including a trip down into the amazing Turbine Room.  After the tour, the coach will return to Las Vegas via an alternate route affording excellent views of the lake. (Tour Price $30.)
Photo: Construction workers at Hoover Dam.  Courtesy of the Las Vegas News Bureau, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
 

Unfortunately this tour has been cancelled.
Here are links to the spots where the tour had planned to visit so that you can create a cultural tour of your own.
   The Bellagio Fine Arts Gallery
   The Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum at The Venetian
   The Liberace Museum

Thursday, October 14  · 1:30 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Is there “culture” in Sin City?  How often have residents of the Las Vegas Valley been asked about the nature of living in such a culturally unusual place and wondered why such questions are still asked by people who don’t live in Las Vegas?  This tour addresses the theme of culture’s place in a tourist city with a local population of 1.7 million that has acquired the majority of its population in the last two decades.  The tour will include a trip to the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, the Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum at The Venetian, as well as quirkier offering, the Liberace Museum, and other local sites.  (Tour Price $50.)
Photo: The Guggenheim-Hermitage Museum at the Venetian Hotel.  Courtesy of the Las Vegas News Bureau, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
 

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UNLV public, western, and environmental historian Andrew Kirk will lead a group of outdoor enthusiasts on a moderate hike in dramatic Red Rock Canyon.  The stunning Bureau of Land Management site is about a half hour drive from the conference hotel.  The coach will take the group through a sea of suburban development and then into the peace and tranquility of this natural refuge.  At Red Rock we will be met by a BLM guide who will provide a brief overview of the history, geography, and geology of the site.  The coach will take the group on the 14-mile scenic drive, which features amazing views of rock formations, petrified sand dunes, and other natural wonders.  Bring some comfortable walking shoes or hiking boots for the next part of the tour; and, even though it’s mid-October, don’t forget bottled water, a hat, and sunscreen. (Tour Price $30.)
Photo: Red Rock Canyon. Courtesy of the Las Vegas News Bureau, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

UNLV Native American historian Willard Rollings, author, most recently, of Unaffected by the Gospel: Osage Resistance to the Christian Invasion, 1673-1906, A Victory, and UNLV anthropologist Martha Knack, a specialist in local Paiute ethnohistory and the author of a recent WHA prize-winning history of the tribe, Boundaries Between: The Southern Paiutes, 1775-1995, will lead the group on this tour of the amazing Valley of Fire.  Located 55 miles northeast of Las Vegas and just a few miles from Lake Mead and dedicated in 1935, Valley of Fire is the state’s oldest and largest state park.  The dramatic red sandstone formations set in the beautiful Mojave Desert are the source of the park’s name.  A short walk amongst the flaring red rocks brings the group to petrified wood and numerous Indian petroglyphs, some reputed to be 3,000 years old.  During the walking tour (bring comfortable shoes, bottled water, a hat, and sunscreen), the two guides will discuss the history and ethnography of the region’s Southern Paiute Indians.  The tour will conclude at the site’s interpretive center.  (Tour Price $30.)
Photo: Rock formation at Valley of Fire State Park. Courtesy of the Las Vegas News Bureau, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Join owner, operator, and restorer Dan Markoff in a very personal and hands-on tour of his fully restored 1875 Baldwin 4-4-0 woodburning locomotive the Eureka & Palisade Locomotive #4.  The Eureka is the oldest operable narrow gauge 4-4-0 in the U.S. The locomotive was built in Philadelphia and made its way to Palisade, Nevada along the transcontinental railroad. There it became part of the Eureka & Palisade line in central Nevada and regularly made the trip between the two towns of Eureka and Palisade.  Markoff frequently takes the Eureka on the road and is a regular participant in the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad’s Railfest and has also traveled the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad in northern New Mexico. (Tour Price $15.)
Photo: Eureka & Palisade Locomotive #4. Courtesy of Dan Markoff.

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