|
Museum NewsVolume 11, Number 2 April 1999 |
This month's Newsletter pix---> Ichthyosaur, John Detra, Hist'ry Day , Nancy Austin, Map to get here
It's a truism that Museum members have heard often: the heart of a museum is in its collections. It is our responsibility to locate artifacts, photographs and documents which enable us to interpret Nevada's past. The Museum has recently acquired two very different kinds of collections that will significantly enhance the institution's exhibits down the road.
The Museum's Exhibits Department has set itself a task that might have daunted Procrustes, the robber of Greek mythology who cut off the legs of victims too large to fit his bed. A newly acquired set of fossilized bones, forty-five feet long, just won't fit on a wall thirty feet long.
The bones in question belong to Shonisaurus popularis, otherwise known to all fourth-grade students in Nevada as an ichthyosaur. The fossilized skeleton was discovered in 1928 near the old mining camp of Berlin north of Tonopah. (The area is now Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.) Many other specimens were subsequently found in the same area, but one thing that makes the Museum's newest acquisition special is that it is the "type specimen," the specimen that gave the species its designation, Shonisaurus popularis. It is also the specimen that led to the designation by the legislature of this ichthyosaur as the official state fossil in 1977. The huge marine reptile has wandered a bit since it died some 190 million years ago. It was stored for years in a garage near Washoe Lake before finally being assembled and put on display at the Barrick Museum at UNLV in 1980.
We very much appreciate the Barrick's decision to transfer the fossil to us. It will be put on view as soon as the exhibits crew can solve their procrustean problem.
|
| Frank and Angelina Detra and son John |
"Wrong," says John Detra. He should know; through the 1930s, his parents, Frank and Angelina Detra, owned and operated the luxuriously appointed Pair-O-Dice Club, three miles south of Las Vegas on the Los Angeles Highway. From the gleaming copper distillery hidden under the quail pen in the back to the gourmet Italian food served on fine linen table cloths, the Pair-O-Dice breathed class. It also had the first elaborate swamp-cooling system in a Las Vegas club. A friend and associate of Chicago crime figure Al Capone, Frank Detra operated the Pair-O-Dice until he sold it to California gambler Guy McAfee in 1939. After that, it became the 91 Club and later, part of the Last Frontier.
Frank and Angelina's son, John Detra, has donated to the Museum artifacts from the 1930s resort and speakeasy, including dice table lamps, table cloths, art deco glassware, a large portable cigar ashtray, memorabilia of his parents, and numerous photographs. Included in the donation are lovely and intricate lacework and Irish linen "cut-out" items fashioned by his mother.
The generous donation by John Detra will be an invaluable part of the Museum's collection and help interpret the late Prohibition and early gaming era in Las Vegas.
If you missed this year's Jason Project at the Community College of Southern Nevada, you still have a chance to see the Museum-designed exhibit that was a part of it.
In March, the Museum finished another successful collaboration with the Clark County School District and the Jason Foundation. The Exhibits Department assembled an exhibit on butterfly biology and installed it at the Community College, host of the two-week live, interactive broadcast titled "Rain Forests: A Wet and Wild Adventure." The exhibit featured many exotic specimens collected by Museum Zoologist George Austin, an internationally recognized expert on Lepidoptera. (Much of George's "vacation time" is taken up in private research in the Brazilian rain forest.) Along with the Museum's exhibit, there were other locally produced exhibits featuring a miniature submarine, live boa constrictors and spiders, as well as student art work depicting rain forests.
The Jason Project is a multi-disciplinary research effort which uses inquiry-based and hands-on learning through the integration of a variety of electronic, print, and broadcast media. Satellite links transmitted data, images, and hands-on control between Jason researchers and their equipment in the Amazon rain forest and thousands of students bused to CCSN during the first two weeks of March. It is an exciting approach to teaching and learning the scientific method.
This wonderfully colorful exhibit is again open to public view in the Museum's Natural History Gallery as "Palettes in Flight." Come in soon and see this collection of nature's art work.
Twenty-eight Clark County School District teachers received an introduction to the Museum through two Professional Development Education courses this past February. Each course was an all-Saturday session, one concentrating on Museum biological exhibits and the other on historical and pre-historical topics.
The purpose of the classes was to introduce the Nevada State Museum & Historical Society as a classroom resource. Teachers were given an intensive tour of exhibits and they received materials on the exhibit topics and classroom activity suggestions for use in developing lessons. Questioning techniques for artifacts and specimens on exhibit were given close attention. The course materials were "grade level adaptable" and teachers from kindergarten through high school were enrolled.
Museum exhibits like "Life in the Hot and Dry" and the permanent gallery exhibits, the museum's traveling history trunks, and the resources of the Cahlan Library can provide a different kind of learning for students. The hope is that more teachers will be inspired to take advantage of the museum for field trips and as a way of bringing hands-on excitement to the classroom.
On Saturday, March 20, over sixty Clark County School District students competed in History Day 1999 at the Nevada State Museum & Historical Society. The theme for this year was Science, Technology, Invention in History: Impact, Influence, and Change. Students set up their exhibits in the Museum history gallery and staged historical performances in the auditorium.
History Day judges Alan Lipsky, Assemblyman Bob Beers, Assemblywoman Barbara Cegavske, and (far right) Angie Wallin with Megan Mortenson, First Place winner for Individual Project in the Junior Division
Thirty young scholars competed in the Junior (Middle School) Division, and twenty-two in the Senior (High School) Division in four categories: papers, projects, media, and performance. Rules required that the students be present to discuss their work with judges who scored each entry. The presentations examined how science, technology, or invention shaped society here in Nevada or anywhere in the world. Thirteen students won first-place awards of $100.00 each.
Schools represented included Becker and Gibson Middle Schools and Western and Cimarron-Memorial High Schools. First-place winners from Las Vegas and those from northern Nevada are all eligible to represent the state in the national competition this summer. That competition will be held in College Park, Maryland.
Judges this year included School District representatives, UNLV professors, museum curators and educators, and several state legislators. Members of the Museum's Volunteer and Docent Council served as hosts for the event.
Dennis McBride, Boulder City: Las Vegas Library dedication program of 1952; Desert Inn menu of 1951; Tom Carroll political card; Lake Mead and Hoover Dam brochures; Boulder City decals, annual reports, brochures, publications, and mailers; Kay Harper, Española, New Mexico: twenty color slides of Las Vegas scenes, 1958; Robert Needham, Las Vegas: "Mob Law" movie poster; Molly Millman, Las Vegas: "Jake the Flake" cassette tape featuring Bob Stupak and Phyllis McGuire; Norman Paul, Las Vegas: 1,135 carts (tapes) from 1940s-1960s used by radio station KORK; Bruce Boyd, Henderson: "Dam Site" Coca-Cola bottle, 1930s; Don Johnston, Las Vegas: promotional booklet from Venetian Hotel; Helen Smith, Henderson: ten pairs of designer shoes from J. Magnin, Las Vegas; western-style suit from Rex Bell store; square dance dress; shirt from Last Frontier store; dress from Magnin's in Las Vegas; boots from Ely, Nevada; University of Nevada, Las Vegas: Ichthyosaur fossils (Shonisaurus popularis, S. mulleri, S. silberlingi), originally from the area now known as Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park.
What was it like living in Las Vegas during World War II? For those of you who may not have been around at the time (and especially for those of you who were!), the Museum will present a locally-produced theatrical view of the experience. In fact, the newest section of the History Gallery, which interprets the significance of that war on the development of Las Vegas, will serve as a backdrop for the play. Developed and written in conjunction with UNLV's Senior Adult Theater Program, it was adapted, edited and compiled by university graduate student Kimberly Chin. The one-hour presentation features song and dance from the 1940s as well as personal vignettes and references to local history, such as Fanny's Dress Shop and the Basic Magnesium plant.
If you missed the first run of this play (they had to turn people away from packed houses at UNLV last January), or if you want a chance to see it again, plan a trip to the Museum on Sunday, May 23. Two shows will be scheduled at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. Seating will be limited. The performance is included in the regular Museum admission$2 for adults. Members and children under 18 are always admitted free.
The Museum's new acquisition exhibit space at the main entrance now features costumes worn by long-time Las Vegas entertainer and comedienne Nancy Austin. The three costumes shown include two which are Busby Berkeley-inspired and an elaborate (to say the least!) astronaut costume. All were created by famed Hollywood designer Bob Mackie for Miss Austin.
The costumes, designed for the "Jimmy Rogers Show" on television in 1969, were also utilized by Miss Austin in her Las Vegas productions. The costumes were donated to the Museum by the late entertainer's husband, David London. The Museum hopes that these will be but the start of a substantial collection of Las Vegas entertainer costumes and memorabilia.
Telephone 702-486-5205 Fax 702-486-5172
The Museum is open to the public 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.7 days a week
For Information Call 486 - 5205
