New visitor center to open at fort

Architectural design, materials symbolize year history

Photo by Jim Decker Photo by Jim Decker Advertisement

For its sesquicentennial, the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort is celebrating not only the old but the new as well: A nearly $1.9 million visitor center will be unveiled Saturday.

Created by award-winning Las Vegas architect Eric Strain and his staff at assemblageSTUDIO, the new visitor center was developed to welcome and educate the public about the site's rich history. And it does just that through design details and materials symbolizing the 150-year-old fort's history.

Strain says the idea wasn't to have a center that looked brand new or even to remake the fort itself, but to create something that expresses a sense of timelessness that will last for many more years to come.

"The front entry was done not just to allow you to get out of your car and walk right in the front door, but to try to re-create -- as brief as we could -- the idea of journey. That's why the path takes you down around the end and then it brings you back. It's not an immediate satisfaction, but it is coming up and appreciating and thinking about what's here."

The timelessness concept is echoed in the landscaping as well.

"The grasses that are out here are meant to re-create the meadow that the Mormons found when they first came here," Strain said. "Eventually, the (regal mist) will grow up. These grasses will grow to about 4 feet tall and completely fill in; it'll look like a big grassy mound, not individual plants."

Inside the center, visitors are greeted by a cool, open space that includes a historical display area, gift shop, library and video room. It's a nod to the past yet quite modern all at the same time.

"Within, we really wanted to try to use materials that were similar to what they built the fort out of," Strain said. "(We used) all-wood construction inside and exposed it so you get that same sense as from the existing buildings. It's all post-and-beam, all the structures are exposed just to make it feel like this thing has been here for a while."

Tying 19th century materials into modern-day conveniences was met with flair throughout. Concrete blocks were used to symbolize the adobe bricks of the fort as well as to represent the era when the fort was used as Hoover Dam's concrete testing facility in 1929. Weathered steel was the element of choice on the overhang of the butterfly roof and on the exterior walls to represent the missionaries' attempt at mining ore in the surrounding foothills.

Strain said Nevada State Parks wanted substances relative to the period, such as canvas, to be incorporated, so that was used as the ceiling in the video room to represent the covered wagons the Mormons rode in to get to Las Vegas from Utah in 1855. It was also used in place of traditional air conditioning duct by way of a perforated canvas duct "tube."

"When you turn (the air conditioning) on and that thing inflates, it's a continuous air current," Strain said. "So instead of just getting spot air, we get a continuous flow of air throughout the whole place. We reduced the load, but we actually keep it cooler. And we use the concrete (walls and floor) as a cooling compound to reduce the heat."

Along the front wall of the visitor center is the main exhibition area. Two-inch thick glass dividers that slice through the wall to the outside are a visual and physical way to separate the different historical periods in the interpretive display.

"The glass slivers are meant to (copy) the view ports that are up in the bastion (of the fort)," he said. "We wanted to replicate that idea, that there are slices in the building. So these come in between the concrete panels."

This same theme was used in the detached restrooms near the courtyard, too. Thin glass slivers are neatly spaced between concrete blocks in the exterior walls and allow natural light in.

"When the sun is directly out of the south, it lights up and this whole ceiling space is covered with green light," he said.

This building is also a bit taller than the visitor's center and that design element makes it similar to the overall lines of the fort.

"When you look at this project from the front," Strain said, "you see that solid wall and then you see this higher mass at the end, which is our bastion."

The exhibit's historical timeline was created by Consortium West, an interpretive communication company that specializes in planning and designing displays for museums. It includes an orientation on the original natural landscape, the Paiute Indians, Old Spanish Trail, Mormon missionaries and building of the fort, ranch period, railroad ownership, Hoover Dam's concrete lab and finally the boomtown era up to today.

"Throughout the whole timeline," said Rich Pulsipher, president of Consortium West, "we really focus on the fort and the site itself being the birthplace of Las Vegas. We concentrate a lot on what was happening there."

Each section has a photo mural background that is 10 feet tall and 12 feet wide representing that particular era or period of time and includes artifacts, texts, photographs and interpretive displays to more fully explain the history.

"Basically the idea of the exhibits is to set the stage for people to go out into the park itself and see the partially reconstructed fort and the historic Bureau of Reclamation building as well," Pulsipher said.

Quotes from travelers' diaries, letters and journals are etched onto a glass wall opposite the exhibition. The quotes are illuminated by the natural light that comes streaming through a large glass window on the exterior wall facing the courtyard. It draws people to the library, the next stop for visitors in search of more insight into the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort.

Framed in bright, light green -- reminiscent of the native palo verde trees, the library houses a large conference table with plenty of room to read up on the history and view historical maps of the area and trading routes to California.

The last stop inside the center is the video room where visitors may watch continuously playing DVDs. One is a nine-minute presentation that covers the whole spectrum plus a few points that are not covered in the exhibit's timeline. The other film is a 19-minute documentary focusing mostly on the Mormon missionaries and their contributions to the area.

"This whole part of town is going through a revitalization, and we're excited about the added attraction the new visitor center brings," said Dave Coon, vice president of sales at neighboring Anderson Dairy and co-chair of the Las Vegas Centennial Celebration subcommittee for the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort. "For those of us who have been involved in this committee for the past 2 1/2 years, we have come to really appreciate these hardy folks who came down here."

The subcommittee's other co-chair, Karen Hayes-King, a former Clark County commissioner, agrees and is hopeful that the sesquicentennial celebrations will help highlight the history of the birthplace of Las Vegas.

"I was impressed at how many people are not aware of the fort," Hayes-King said. "(When you talk about the 150-year anniversary) basically people say 'what Mormon fort and where is it?' Hopefully the vistor center, the dedication and what we're doing will let people know what's here. Vegas was not always Fremont Street and gambling. ... I think that this is something people should know is here and what Vegas is all about."

The Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort is located at 500 E. Washington Ave.