The Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas, now is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays through a timed ticket system.
After temporary closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the state museum on the Springs Preserve campus has reopened with limited capacity and health protocols in place. Visitors will be able to enjoy new exhibits including a Shasta Ground Sloth fossil and a “Les Folies Bergere” showgirl costume, as well as longer-running favorites Prejudice & Pride: The Fight to Vote, and The Art of Crafting.
Sloths lived in Nevada about 33,000 years ago, and the Shasta Ground Sloth exhibit focuses on this particular member of the sloth family.
The new exhibit complements the complete fossil specimen on display in the main gallery, focusing on such attributes of this creature as the claws, which the sloth used protect itself from such predators as mountain lions, saber-toothed tigers and humans.
Another new exhibit features one of the elaborate costumes from the “Les Folies Bergere” show that ran for decades at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas before ending its run in 2009.
Now on display is an outfit from the show’s “La Belle Epoque” scene, one that reveals the patches and repairs made by the show’s wardrobe department over the years.
"Prejudice & Pride: The Fight to Vote" acknowledges this year’s 100-year anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave some women in the United States the right to vote. This exhibit explores women’s suffrage in context with other U.S. suffrage challenges; the museum also has made this display available in an online format with a video series.
The museum also is displaying "The Art of Crafting," inspired by people who completed unfinished craft projects or repurposed and handmade clothes and toys during the state shutdown in spring 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It celebrates the history of home projects with examples from its collections such as a homemade floral dress from the 1950s and a brightly colored croqueted shawl.
Museum hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and visitors will need to book a ticket online that will allow entry to the museum as well as the Springs Preserve campus on which the museum is located. The last available entry is at 3 p.m.
Tickets are $5 adults, $2.50 children ages 3 to 17. Visitors are required to wear face coverings and maintain a social distance of 6 feet.
The Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas is located at 333 S. Valley View Blvd.
