Museums help preserve Nevada’s history

On Sept. 19 the Nevada State Railroad Museum Boulder City opened its new visitor center. In addition to the dignitaries and invited guests, over 1,000 people visited that day, showing tremendous support within the community for cultural institutions like ours.

Since then, we’ve heard resounding positive feedback from residents throughout Clark County as they toured the facility engaging with our informative exhibits. With so much good news, it’s easy to forget there remains critical unfinished work.

The museum’s visitor center was always designed to be a jumping off point for the rest of the campus; it was never intended to be a standalone facility. The next stage of the museum’s master plan calls for the construction of a display hall—a facility that would house and display our historic railroad equipment while also providing additional exhibits, classroom, and archival space that support our life-long learning programs. Indoor displays are what the public expects and demands when they visit a railroad museum, and this has long been part of the museum’s plan since our founding in 1991.

John Steinbeck wrote, “How will we know it’s us without our past?” This is one of the essential roles the museum plays by helping preserve priceless artifacts that tell countless stories of growth and demise, opportunity and hardship, success and failure, and what it means to be a Nevadan that we can all learn from.

For 35 years, the museum’s historic railroad collection of locomotives, passenger and freight cars have remained outside and unprotected. With the oldest built in 1873 and the newest in 1979, our collection offers over 100 years of railroad history in Nevada, but remaining outside without cover is not ideal. Many of the cars are unrestored as it does not make sense to invest the time and resources necessary to restore an artifact only for it to sit outside exposed to the elements. In short, the display hall will help preserve artifacts and showcase them to the visiting public, meeting guest expectations while helping attract additional tourists to the area.

Museums like ours are terrific assets to their communities and geographic regions. Over 65% of visitors to Nevada want to visit a cultural institution or historic site during their stay. The Nevada State Railroad Museum helps meet that demand.

Guests take their time at museums, equating to longer stays and longer stays mean they are more likely to eat at a local restaurant, patronize a local business, and if visiting the area, stay an extra night in a hotel. All this patronage leads to jobs for residents, income for local business owners, and sales tax revenues that pay for good roads, quality parks, police, and fire services without additional burden on residents. Put simply, museums help their communities thrive.

If you are passionate about preserving our past, providing life-long learning opportunities and want to see our wonderful community continue to prosper, you can help support the museum by sharing your excitement through volunteering, donating to the museum, and/or vocalizing what you would like to see here in Boulder City to our elected leaders in Carson City.

Your support for the museum’s future display hall not only helps preserve Nevada’s history, but it also helps make our community an even better place to live. It helps us expand our public education role by offering more opportunities to the thousands of students who visit each year and expand our life-long learning programs for those of us wishing to learn more. It offers additional archival space providing further research opportunities to academics, authors, and amateur historians alike. The growth of the museum directly supports the economic, cultural, and intellectual vitality of Boulder City and Southern Nevada.

We love calling Boulder City home and are grateful for the positive support we receive from our local community as well as the over 50,000 guests we receive from Southern Nevada each year. Together, we can continue to accomplish great things right here in beautiful Boulder City.