Reliving Two Explosive Eras From Las Vegas’ Past

Somewhat removed from the clanging slot machines, packed showrooms and vibrant pool scenes of the Las Vegas Strip and Freemont Street are two museums that harken back to the town’s famous and infamous role in two key parts of American history.

National Atomic Testing Museum

Along a stretch of Flamingo Road among unassuming strip centers and office complexes, the Smithsonian-affiliated National Atomic Testing Museum contains artifacts and displays on a topic partially brought back into the spotlight by the success of the 2023 movie “Oppenheimer.”

Guarding the entrance to the exhibits is an actual ballistics case for a “Fat Man” style bomb, similar to the device that was the nuclear device detonated over Nagasaki, Japan during World War II on August 9, 1945. That version weighed 10,000 pounds and contained an explosive force equal to 20,000 tons of TNT.

Exhibits in the 8,000-square-foot cover museum are segmented into six galleries, starting with the “Atomic Age,” detailing the establishment of the Nevada Test Site and the early development and testing of nuclear weapons that occurred there. The pop-culture buzz that surrounded the new technology is also represented, with items such as breakfast cereal, comic books, toys, wine and cocktail recipes.

 As visitors make their way further into the adjoining galleries, topics such as how underground testing is conducted, technological advances, political and environmental impacts of the nuclear program and the current state of the nuclear weapons stockpile are covered in-depth.

The Mob Museum

Tucked away a few blocks north of Freemont Street, Las Vegas’ former federal courthouse just north of Freemont Street found new life when then Mayor Oscar Goodman was able to procure the building for one dollar from the federal government, with the stipulation that it was to be used as a museum.

While its primary purpose early on had been as a post office and miscellaneous offices, the federal courtroom is what secured the building’s path to notoriety and caused it to be added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

The National Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement (also known as “The Mob Museum”), opened in the former courthouse on February 14, 2012, coinciding with the anniversary of the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in which Al Capone allegedly ordered members of a rival gang executed in Chicago.

It seems fitting, then, that the wall the massacre occurred against is one of over 2,000 artifacts in the museum. Items that have appeared in the museum’s rotating roster of relics are associated with both fictional mobsters (one of Enoch “Nucky” Thompson’s suits from the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” and an original third-draft script from “The Godfather”) and real life organized crime figures (a ticket for the fixed 1919 World Series, recordings of law enforcement wire taps, a Prohibition era still and weapons tied to New York Mafia boss Joseph Bonanno, undercover agent Mike Malone and Al Capone).

In addition to an exhibit of regularly rotating topics, the permanent collection covers the origins and growth of organized crime in the United States, Prohibition, organized crime’s role in the founding and growth of Las Vegas and the Kefauver Hearings.

The hearings, led by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, investigated organized crime and its reach and effect in the U.S. Hearings were held in 14 cities across the country, including Las Vegas. The courtroom where the hearings occurred and helped to cement the building’s place in history, is the center of the museum, with a holographic recreation of some of the testimonies from the November 15, 1950, event.

Side Trip…

In 2018, the museum expanded to include The Underground, a Prohibition-themed exhibition in the building’s basement that features a working speakeasy bar and distillery that also doubles as an event space.

National Atomic Testing Museum
755 E. Flamingo Rd.
Las Vegas, NV 89119
Open daily, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
https://www.atomicmuseum.vegas/

The Mob Museum
300 Stewart Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89101
https://themobmuseum.org/

Museum:
Open daily, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Underground speakeasy and distillery:
Monday–Wednesday: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
Thursday–Sunday: 11 a.m. to midnight