Mining, Gambling, and More all on Display the Clark County Museum

August 20, 2025, Leave a Comment on Mining, Gambling, and More all on Display the Clark County Museum

While Las Vegas may be the literal bright spot that everyone flocks to when visit Nevada, just a few miles to the southeast is something anyone who loves Nevada should visit, the Clark County Museum. The museum sprawls over 30 acres, and features relocated buildings, train cars, antique farm equipment, and more.

The adobe-like building tells the story of the area’s Indigenous people through the modern gambling era, and encompasses the mining and government work that also took place in the region.

Outside visitors can walk along Heritage Street that features several relocated buildings, each that tell a unique story.

In 1912 this California bungalow was built by the Beckley family in downtown Las Vegas. Will Beckley was the owner of a menswear store which he operated until January 10, 1941. The location then became the Pioneer Club, and just ten years later, in 1951, it would become one of the most iconic locations in Las Vegas, when it welcomed the massive neon cowboy dubbed Vegas Vic. Unlike the other buildings, this one astonishingly has its original furnishings.

Visitors who walk into the Giles/Barcus House do so through an old door salvaged from Scotty’s Castle, and into a home built around 1924 in Goldfield. Owned by Edwin and Edith Giles, they raised a daughter, also named Edith here, who moved the house to Las Vegas in 1955 with her husband, Clyde Barcus. Edith later used the house as an antique shop. A lover of items from the past, Edith made arrangements prior to her death in 1984 for the house to be saved for the museum.

A print shop also graces Heritage Street. While built in 1984, it evokes the style of building from the late 1800s that the area would have had. Inside massive printing presses, a Linotype machine, and various vintage printing blocks tell the story of the press in the area.

The government found Nevada to be a perfect spot for many different projects, but the Hoover Dam provided the perfect amount of power needed to process magnesium for the war effort. In 1941 houses, including this one, along with schools, churches, shops, library, hospital, theater, and even a bowling alley, were built to house the employees of Basic Magnesium Inc. While billed as “temporary” they lasted until redevelopment of the area, and the house was moved in 1982 to the museum.

Midcentury lovers will enjoy the Goumond House. While built in 1931, it went through renovations in the 1940s and 50s, making it the perfect home to showcase 1950s living. The exterior evokes the cute International style that wouldn’t look out of place at Disneyland, as it combines Swiss Chalet, English Tudor, and Scandinavian styles. Some of my favorite items were inside this home, including tables of dice, made by Max Williamson and his wife. Williamson was a warehouse supervisor at the Desert Inn from 1950 to 1972. I also loved the TV magnifier, proving even in the 1950s we wanted larger TVs.

While Las Vegas is known for its glamorous and massive resorts, the tourism industry in the area was humble, starting with tents, and moving on to motor courts and trailer parks in the 1930s. Vegas became an early tourist destination for a variety of reasons, of course there was the gambling, but the modern marvel that was Hoover Dam, along with easy marriage and divorce, made Vegas a hot spot. I especially loved the incredible furniture inside the motor court cabin that originally hailed from the Apache Hotel that was built on Fremont Street in 1932.

As mentioned, Vegas became known as the place to get married ASAP, and is still home to a plethora of churches. The Candlelight Wedding Chapel that opened in 1968 was relocated to the Clark County Museum in 2007 after it closed in 2004.

The Clark County Museum has its own unique story as well, that begins all the way back in Pennsylvania in 1888. It is there that Mary Anna Nuhfer was born. Nuhfer went by Anna, and later moved to Bakersfield, California, working as a cook, but then moved to Las Vegas in 1911. The following year, her and her boyfriend (later husband), William Isaac Roberts opened a store and established the Nevada Lime and Plaster Company. In 1914 they married and went into the funerary business, with William becoming the first mortician in Las Vegas. Anna was also fond of collecting just about anything and everything as well. Later, Anna went to LA to attend embalming school, and returned to Vegas after graduating in 1925. When she returned she became the first female funeral director licensed in Nevada. While her marriage with William ended in 1926, she continued with her funeral business, opening Palm Funeral Home. For a period of time she was a single mother and business woman, running her funeral home, raising her daughter, Edith, as well as caring for her aging mother, all while also continuing to collect items.

In 1928 she married a man named Gene Parks, and soon her collection was so large it overran her property and she filled another building. By 1945, Anna decided it was time to retire, and sold her business. She also attempted to find a home for her massive collection of local artifacts. Anna’s incredible life ended when she died in a car accident in 1962, before she could find a permanent home for her collection. Her daughter then continued the hunt. Thankfully the Henderson Chamber of Commerce accepted the collection on loan in 1969, and created the Clark County Museum.

The Clark County Museum is located at 1830 S. Boulder Highway, in Henderson, and is just a half hour drive from Fremont Street. For details on events, hours, and more, visit their website.