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Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park
Launch into the past by taking a driving tour along one of the 19th century's most important trade routes.
The Park
The old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Historic Park serves as a visitor centre with interpretive shows concerning the oldest building in the state, the 1855 Mormon Fort at Las Vegas Ranch, established after Mormon settlers took the Old Spanish Trail west. Upcoming expansion at the park will include the re-creation of many historic features and an unlimited visitor centre. Historic appreciation is and will remain the focus of the park.
Tranquil Spot
The park is a peaceful place, with the sounds of traffic seeming to be muted. It's relaxing to sit beneath the trellis, walk along the path of the babbling brook, to discover what life was like in 19th-century Nevada.
The Old Fort
On June 14, 1855, 30 Mormon missionaries arrived in the Las Vegas Valley after travelling for 35 days from Salt Lake City. They were sent by a Mr Brigham Young, to build a fort, to create a way station between the settlements in Utah and those in California. The Mormons were also expected to develop peaceful relations with the local Indians and convert them to Mormonism. The fort was first constructed by driving wedges into the creek bed, and consisted of an adobe enclosure, 150 feet on each side, with towers or bastions at the northwest and southeast corners. The Mormons used flood irrigation to farm the area, a process that is still used today at the Old Vegas Mormon State Historic Park.
When Young sent another assembly of men out to the fort, tensions rose between the two groups and those stationed at the fort were discharged. A miner, Octavius D. Gass, took advantage of the situation and gained control of the fort in 1865. It changed hands twice more before ending up as the property of the Bureau of Reclamation, which used the fort's ranch house as an office for the Hoover Dam's construction.
The Ranch House
Housing authentic furniture from the fort including a spinning wheel, pump organ, butter churner and the first flag flown over Vegas (made of jeans and a red shirt) and containing panels representing the fort's detailed history, is the ranch house, the oldest building in Nevada. There is also a map at the ranch house explaining the perimeters of the fort and how they appear today.
The Fort Today
The adobe building that was closest to the creek is the only surviving part of the forts structure. The other walls and the bastion that was at the northeast corner are reconstructions.
Further Information
Old Vegas Mormon State Historic Park is located in downtown Las Vegas, at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue. The park and Visitor Center is open all year from 8:00 a.m-4:30 p.m. The entrance fee is $3 for adults, $2 for children 6-12, free to children under 6.
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