Gun club aims to survive after shooting park opens

Photos by jenna dosch/viewLeft, Las Vegas Gun Club members Gary Wehrkamp, right, and Bob Gott joke around while playing gin rummy at the Las Vegas Gun Club, 9400 Tule Springs Road, May 30. Right, Riley Clark, 11, trains at the club, which may be rendered obsolete due to the Clark County Shooting Park, which is under construction and is expected to open in March 2009. Photos by jenna dosch/viewLeft, Las Vegas Gun Club members Gary Wehrkamp, right, and Bob Gott joke around while playing gin rummy at the Las Vegas Gun Club, 9400 Tule Springs Road, May 30. Right, Riley Clark, 11, trains at the club, which may be rendered obsolete due to the Clark County Shooting Park, which is under construction and is expected to open in March 2009. Photos by jenna dosch/viewLeft, Las Vegas Gun Club members Gary Wehrkamp, right, and Bob Gott joke around while playing gin rummy at the Las Vegas Gun Club, 9400 Tule Springs Road, May 30. Right, Riley Clark, 11, trains at the club, which may be rendered obsolete due to the Clark County Shooting Park, which is under construction and is expected to open in March 2009. Photos by jenna dosch/viewLeft, Las Vegas Gun Club members Gary Wehrkamp, right, and Bob Gott joke around while playing gin rummy at the Las Vegas Gun Club, 9400 Tule Springs Road, May 30. Right, Riley Clark, 11, trains at the club, which may be rendered obsolete due to the Clark County Shooting Park, which is under construction and is expected to open in March 2009. Advertisement

Time may be running out for the Las Vegas Gun Club, the sport shooting facility at Floyd Lamb Park at Tule Springs.

Although the gun range seems to have been in place forever -- the infamous Mint 400 off-road race used to be based at the facility -- and the current owner has been operating it for almost 20 years, like most places with ties to Las Vegas' past, it soon could be wiped away and replaced with something bigger and more modern -- in this case, the Clark County Shooting Park.

But not yet. While the county park continues construction toward its March 2009 opening, the city of Las Vegas offered the gun club an extension of its lease that would keep it running at Floyd Lamb through December 2009.

Ward 6 City Councilman Steve Ross said the extension would provide an overlap, giving shooters recreational options until the county facility opens.

"We want to make sure the county's park is up and running before we shut anything down," Ross said. "We have a lot of enthusiasts who like to shoot skeet and trap, and it is going to be a transition for sportsmen to move over to a new facility. But it also gives the owners of the gun club, the Carmichaels, the ability to schedule events they have been working on for quite some time.

"We want to help them out. There are a lot of enthusiasts that really enjoy shooting out there, and they let me know about it. They called my home. They came over. It's not a surprising reaction because there are a lot of wonderful people in the northwest and beyond that have been using the facility at Floyd Lamb for years."

Even before construction for the shooting park began in January between Decatur Boulevard and Buffalo Drive at the base of the Sheep Mountain Range, the massive new facility was expected to become a world-class range attracting shooters from all over, rendering the old gun club obsolete.

But Steve Carmichael doesn't see it that way, and neither does the club's large and faithful following.

"We always wanted to operate until that facility opened. We wanted to stay as long as we could, but it was kind of hard to plan until we (extended the lease)," Carmichael said. "Depending on when the park has clay target facilities operating, that will probably determine when our final date will be. But our attitude now is, we're still making improvements. We're preparing for longevity. We had put some things on the back burner, waiting to see what would happen, but we don't want to look like we're drying up. We're advancing instead."

Carmichael, a longtime northwest resident whose son, 17-year-old Bishop Gorman student Stef Carmichael, is captain of the All-American sub-junior shooting team, said he is working on renovating parts of the facility, including the restaurant's kitchen and bar. Along with its 14 trap fields, two skeet fields, sporting clays course and two wobble trap fields, the gun club includes a pro shop next to the Red Moose bar and grill.

He said he believes the Las Vegas Gun Club and Clark County Shooting Park can coexist.

"Everybody wants to keep us here," Steve Carmichael said. "Councilman Ross told me in the last six months, he'd bet he's heard from every customer and user at our facility. We have a loyal following, and that really reinforced for him how much support we have here. That park is a county park. I wonder if the city is aware, if they realize what they could do with this place for a fraction of the cost. The city could have a shiny counterpart to the county facility here."

Ross confirmed the gun club's popularity and support, but with the potential of the county park looming, he said he didn't see the need for another small facility in the area.

"That transition will slowly come to pass, and we'll be able to take a look at how it's going, but the magnitude of the Clark County Shooting Park is so huge, and it will have such a professionally updated version of the skeet and trap facilities," he said. "This is one of the things that will make this area a cultural goldmine for the entire valley."

But the new park won't have the history of the gun club, which Steve Carmichael said he's been researching. The facility has been having shooting tournaments since 1948, he said, although it's been difficult for him to get accurate accounts.

"I'm trying to get more involved in the historical aspects, and I've been told I should look into the National Historic Register," Steve Carmichael said. "It's just hard to document. I've been told it was once known as the Silver Saddle Club, that Roy Rogers and Clark Gable came and shot out here.

"You know, it takes many years, a long time, for a place to develop its own personality. That's what I hear most from the people who have been coming here. There are not many places like this one left in Las Vegas."

For more information about the Las Vegas Gun Club, 9400 Tule Springs Road, visit www.lasvegasgunclub.net.