Finding out all about Fallout at the Atomic Museum
Recently my friend Cristal and I took a little girls trip to Las Vegas specifically to go to the Atomic Museum because we are both fans of Fallout, and the museum just debuted an exhibit about the video game and show. This was my third visit to the museum, which still ranks among one of the best museums I have been to.
While a good deal of the research and development of the atomic bombs that ended World War II was done at Los Alamos, New Mexico, post-war work on atomic energy and testing was done in Nevada. Nevada was, and still is, a relatively desolate state. Because of this, it was selected as the home for inland testing, as opposed to the testing that had been done in the Pacific. Despite being a relatively unpopulated area, testing negatively impacted those in Utah, who later became known as “Downwinders.” The government settled on a place located roughly 75 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and dubbed it Mercury. Prefabricated homes, buildings, and trailers rose in the desert and the citizens balanced work with leisure time spent bowling or at the steakhouse. The first testing was done in late January, 1951, and would last just over ten years, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963, which moved testing underground.
While there is a whole room dedicated to Fallout, scattered throughout the main gallery were Fallout related objects, including a Pip Boy, comic book, and more.
The last room in the main gallery is dedicated to the world of Fallout, the video game turned TV show, with a few real artifacts sprinkled in. While Cristal actually plays the game, I just watch the show, and she has been great teaching me the lore of the world. Fallout, for the uninitiated, provides an alternative history where atomic power becomes the norm, before a “Great War” with communists, and the development of Vault-Tec, a company dedicated to building large, community based bomb shelters. The world is filled with atomic inspired products, from Radiation King televisions to Sugar Bomb cereal. While the Vaults provide a bizarre, but hunk-dory life, the surface has been ravaged by bombs providing an equally bizarre image of dilapidated Googie-style buildings, speaking to my love of the abandoned.
Next time you’re in Vegas, stop by the Atomic Testing Museum located at 755 E. Flamingo Road. For details on exhibits and hours, please visit their website.
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