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Lost & Found Vegas Blog

News, guides and community updates.

A Government Center Gallery Digs Up Nevada's Chinese American Mining Story | Lost & Found Vegas

Clark County's America 250 showcase at the Rotunda Gallery pairs local artwork with an overdue look at the Chinese American miners who helped build Nevada, alongside Native artifacts and painted traffic boxes across the valley.

A Library Show Traces Vegas From Casino Row To Megaresort City | Lost & Found Vegas

A free traveling photo exhibit built from the Las Vegas News Bureau Collection has settled in at the Laughlin Library through mid August, pairing pictures of the resorts that rose between 1980 and 2010 with the older casinos that had to disappear first.

Eighty-Five Years In, El Cortez Is Still Downtown's Oldest Living Room | Lost & Found Vegas

As El Cortez marks its 85th year on Fremont Street this summer, the small Spanish Colonial casino remains the only one of its era still running exactly where it opened, mob ownership, break-in dealers, and all.

The Quiet Governor's Building Comes Down Near Cashman Field | Lost & Found Vegas

Crews began tearing into the Grant Sawyer State Office Building this month, closing out three decades of state work in a tower named for Nevada's civil-rights-era governor, to clear ground for nearly 1,100 new homes.

The Hangar the Navy Never Flew From Is About to Join the National Register | Lost & Found Vegas

A 1933 steel hangar at Boulder City's old airport, drawn up by a famed industrial architect and never actually used by its intended tenant, is now in a federal public comment window on its way to national historic status.

The Suitcase, the Camera, and 300 Photos That Show How Nevada Became Nevada | Lost & Found Vegas

A traveling federal photographer's 1940s road trip through the Silver State is on display at the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas, right alongside a fifty-foot sea reptile that swam here long before anyone thought to bring a camera.

Thirty-Five Years of Dinosaurs and Desert Wonder on Las Vegas Boulevard | Lost & Found Vegas

The Las Vegas Science & Natural History Museum marked 35 years downtown with a birthday party built around wonder, and it's worth a look back at how this small nonprofit became part of the city's cultural memory.

The Railroad Story Nevada Is Finally Giving a Proper Home | Lost & Found Vegas

Before the neon and the casinos, there were the rails that hauled the concrete for Hoover Dam and hid a secret line inside the Nevada Test Site. A new visitor center taking shape in Boulder City is about to give that history somewhere real to live.

The Museum Keeping Watch Over a Desert Site Vegas Can't Actually Visit | Lost & Found Vegas

Sixty-five miles northwest of the Strip sits the ground where the Cold War was rehearsed nearly a thousand times. Most of us will never walk it, but a downtown Las Vegas museum just added a new piece of that vanished landscape to its collection.

North Las Vegas Turns 80, and Buries a Message for 2046 | Lost & Found Vegas

A time capsule under City Hall and a quiet exhibit of old business licenses and fire department records mark eight decades since a barren stretch of desert became its own city.

How the Mob Museum Is Growing Without Overshadowing Its 1933 Courthouse | Lost & Found Vegas

New renderings show the Mob Museum's long-planned addition sliding to the east side of its landmark building, a design change driven as much by respect for a Depression-era courthouse as by budget math.

Fifty Years of the Locals' Casino: How a 5,000-Square-Foot Room on Sahara Grew Into Station Casinos | Lost & Found Vegas

This month Station Casinos marks half a century since Frank Fertitta Jr. opened a modest slot room for Las Vegas residents, a bet on the local market that eventually reshaped how the city gambles, eats and celebrates close to home.

Behind the Velvet Rope: How Duck Duck Shed Turns Vegas Landmarks Into Living Archives | Lost & Found Vegas

The Neon Museum's annual four-day event is less a festival than a temporary opening of the vault, pairing veteran Strip showgirls, a Graceland costume historian, and hands-on neon craft with the buildings and stages that shaped them.

Meet Clinton Wright, the Photographer Who Documented a Westside Vegas Nobody Else Was Capturing | Lost & Found Vegas

A 90th birthday celebration at the Nevada State Museum doubled as a milestone for one of the most important photo archives of Black Las Vegas. Here is what is inside it, and why it almost got lost.

This Year's Best Nevada Photos Are Now Hanging in Your Local Library | Lost & Found Vegas

The 14th annual Focus on Nevada Photo Contest wrapped its spring showcase months ago. Now the winning images are quietly touring Clark County library branches through mid-September, adding one more year to a visual record of the state that started back in 2012.

The Lost Clubs of West Las Vegas: The Black Entertainment District the Strip Would Not Let Exist on Its Own Turf | Lost & Found Vegas

Jackson Avenue in West Las Vegas once had four Black-owned clubs where the biggest names in American music unwound after their Strip shows. The Moulin Rouge opened in 1955 as the first integrated hotel in the country and lasted six months. Here is the history that has been quietly slipping away.

Las Vegas's Original Oasis: The Springs Preserve and the Water That Built a Desert City | Lost & Found Vegas

Before the casinos, before the neon, before the Strip, there were springs. A rare toad photographed at the Springs Preserve in July 2026 is prompting a closer look at what made Las Vegas possible, and what was lost when the water ran out.

Marble Manor Was Built in the 1950s When Las Vegas Kept Its Black Residents Off the Strip: Now It Is Being Rebuilt | Lost & Found Vegas

The public housing complex that anchored the Historic Westside opened during Las Vegas's segregation era. A $400 million redevelopment broke ground in April 2026, raising questions about what is preserved when the buildings come down.

Boulder City's Motel Row: The Eight Mid-Century Inns Nevada Decided to Save Instead of Demolish | Lost & Found Vegas

While three Fremont Street vintage motels fell to the wrecking ball in early 2026, a small Nevada city thirty miles south voted unanimously to protect eight of its own. Here is the preservation story you may have missed.

The Huntridge at 82: How Las Vegas's Most Storied Neighborhood Theater Is Fighting to Come Back | Lost & Found Vegas

Built in 1944, home to Nirvana and Sublime in its prime, dark since 2004, and now closer than ever to reopening, the Huntridge Theater has one last chance and a new plan to make it real.

What the Signs Said: Neon Icons of Las Vegas in the Rat Pack Era | Lost & Found Vegas

The Stardust's cosmic burst. The Sands' sleek script. The Silver Slipper's pink glow. The signs of 1950s and 60s Las Vegas were not just advertising -- they were the city's vocabulary, and the Neon Museum's Boneyard is where you can still read them.

Las Vegas's Mid-Century Commercial Center Is Coming Down. The Oldest Building on the Site Is Still Standing. | Lost & Found Vegas

Clark County began demolishing the Historic Commercial Center District in early 2026. A preservation fight over the site's oldest structure is now testing what Las Vegas means when it says it values its own history.

The Alicia, The Gables, The Valley: What Las Vegas Just Lost on Fremont Street | Lost & Found Vegas

A string of historic motor courts along Fremont Street has been demolished after years of fire damage and neglect. Nevada preservationists are calling the losses devastating. Here is what was there, and why it mattered.

UNLV Opens Its Nevada Photo Vault for America's 250th Anniversary | Lost & Found Vegas

The UNLV Special Collections and Archives is sharing a collection of photographs documenting Nevada from the 1830s through the Hoover Dam era, timed to the nation's 250th birthday. Some of these images exist nowhere else.

The Neon Museum's Year of Relights: Four Signs, Four Stories, Four Pieces of Las Vegas History | Lost & Found Vegas

In 2026 the Neon Museum is staging four major sign relightings that together trace the arc of Las Vegas from its downtown gambling roots through the megaresort era and into the city's new life as a global sports destination.

Historians Choose Las Vegas: The 119th PCB-AHA Annual Meeting Comes to UNLV This July | Lost & Found Vegas

The Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association holds its 119th annual meeting at UNLV July 29-31, 2026, examining 250 years of contested American history under the theme 'We Hold These Truths.'

1906 to 2026: The Golden Gate Hotel and What Las Vegas's Oldest Casino Carries Forward | Lost & Found Vegas

On January 13, 1906, the Hotel Nevada opened at 1 Fremont Street and became the first hotel structure in Las Vegas. One hundred and twenty years later, it is still running. What that kind of continuity means for a city that almost never keeps anything.

Seven Million Images Deep: Inside the LVCVA's Archive of Las Vegas History | Lost & Found Vegas

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has been photographing, filming, and preserving the city's story since 1947. Nearly eight decades later, the collection holds close to seven million images and is still growing every single day.

The Motels Time Forgot — Lost & Found Vegas

Before the megaresorts, Las Vegas welcomed travelers with low-slung motels, kidney pools, and roadside charm.

The Resorts That Came Down — Lost & Found Vegas

Las Vegas is the only place where blowing up a famous hotel can sell tickets. Here's why we record every one.

When the Neon Goes Dark — Lost & Found Vegas

Las Vegas was built on neon. So why do we let so much of it disappear without a second look?

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