0:07

I'm in Las Vegas on Fremont Street.

0:10

There's live music. There's

0:12

a zipline. There's a

0:14

lady doing tricks with a whip. Before

0:20

the big name glitzy casinos of the strip

0:22

were built, Fremont Street was the

0:25

heart of Las Vegas. We

0:27

are talking Rat Pack Las Vegas.

0:30

Back in the 1950s, this is where people came

0:32

to have fun. But in

0:34

those days, the main attraction was

0:36

a little different. Back then,

0:39

you'd climb up to the roof of a

0:41

casino, party all night long. And

0:43

then, just before dawn broke, you

0:46

would turn toward the desert to

0:48

see the big show. I'm

0:52

not talking about a show like Frank

0:54

Sinatra here. I'm talking about

1:01

an explosion of an

1:03

atomic bomb. I'm

1:13

Amanda McGowan, and this is Atlas Obscura, a

1:16

celebration of the world's strange, incredible,

1:18

and wondrous places. Today,

1:21

we're heading to the National Atomic Testing

1:23

Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, to explore

1:25

a time in American history when

1:28

weapons of mass destruction were

1:30

a tourist destination. That's

1:32

after this. For

1:45

a few weeks in June, my boyfriend and I went

1:47

on a cross-country road trip, Boston

1:49

to Southern California. Totally rad.

1:52

And so, of course, we had to stop in

1:54

Las Vegas and did a little bit of gambling,

1:56

went to a magic show. Don't

1:59

judge. But there was something else

2:01

that I wanted to see the National Atomic

2:03

Testing Museum This nuclear chain

2:05

reaction causes a tremendous explosion So

2:08

there we are in the lobby hanging around

2:11

one of the docents comes over and rises

2:13

me about my radio kit Few

2:21

minutes later Michael Hall comes down to meet us.

2:23

He's the director of the museum The

2:26

tour begins right here in the lobby

2:28

in front of this giant hulk of

2:30

metal that looks Kind

2:32

of like a cartoon of a bomb It's

2:35

got a bulbous end on one side and

2:38

fins on the other But that is

2:40

an original bomb casing and that is

2:42

what went inside the fat man bomb

2:45

That was used on Nagasaki. Oh I

2:49

didn't know I thought this is a reproduction. No,

2:51

it's an original now obviously

2:53

it was never used But they built they

2:55

built about Well,

2:58

they build about a dozen. Yeah, that's my

3:00

nervous laughter in there It's

3:02

a little unsettling to be this close to an

3:04

actual Adam bomb case. So

3:06

we'll kind of start At

3:09

the beginning and it's actually again

3:11

when I give this school kids a tour I say

3:13

we're gonna go in a tunnel of time because

3:16

it's very chronological and you know here again

3:18

the Manhattan Project World War two August

3:21

1945 After

3:23

years of a top-secret government science

3:25

project the US produces the most

3:27

terrifying weapon ever known to mankind

3:30

the atomic bomb The

3:33

US drops two of these atomic

3:35

bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in

3:37

Japan It effectively ends World

3:39

War two, but it also claims

3:41

the lives of around 200,000

3:44

civilians At

3:47

the end of the war the US has a

3:49

monopoly on atom bomb technology But

3:51

just a few years later in 1949 Russia

3:55

explodes its first atomic bomb

3:58

the Cold War begins and triggers

4:00

a nuclear arms race. To

4:03

win an arms race, you need weapons. To

4:06

build weapons, you need a place to

4:08

test them. But as soon as you

4:10

swing around here, we come with

4:13

a map of the Nevada test site. This

4:16

was the perfect area. This was one of the

4:18

most remote areas in the entire country.

4:21

There was nothing around here except

4:23

a teeny tiny town down here,

4:25

Las Vegas, Nevada, about 21,000 people. Vegas

4:29

at the time is pretty small, a

4:32

little oasis of gambling and debauchery.

4:35

And just outside of it, there's miles

4:37

of desert. So in

4:39

1951, the government starts testing. They

4:42

even bring live troops out there

4:44

to get used to the idea,

4:47

psychologically, of fighting on a battlefield

4:49

alongside an atomic bomb. The

4:52

tremendous detonation of 260 miles away shakes

4:56

the earth under the soldiers, fills

4:58

the air with flying dust. Now,

5:00

let's take a second to acknowledge how

5:03

wild this is. Blowing

5:05

up atomic bombs a hundred

5:07

miles away from an American

5:09

city? But Michael reminds

5:11

me that the mindset back then

5:13

was really different. Atomic

5:16

testing was part of

5:18

our national identity. America was proud

5:20

of it. And this was the

5:22

recent World War II generation, and everybody

5:24

was very patriotic. And we were

5:26

kind of felt like we were in these desperate

5:28

times with the Cold War and Russia. A

5:32

lot of people thought they'd be another war. We'd have to fight it

5:34

and win it. 75 miles

5:36

away in Las Vegas, you couldn't just hear

5:39

the blast. You could actually see

5:41

them. Michael brings

5:43

me over to a black and white photo of downtown in

5:46

the 1950s. There's

5:48

a big neon sign of a cowboy,

5:51

and in the distance, there's

5:53

a mushroom cloud. Well, here's a

5:55

good image.

6:00

Well, you're in the historic district there, and you

6:02

get a feel for it, because when you look

6:04

out in the Northwest, you're looking

6:06

right over the test site, and you

6:08

can imagine how the mushroom clouds

6:11

rose into the air. Las Vegas knew

6:13

a spectacle when it saw one. Owners

6:16

of casinos and businesses didn't shy away

6:18

from the tests. Instead, they

6:21

said, let's capitalize on all

6:23

of this excitement. Let's sell

6:25

it. Get the

6:28

drink that you don't pour, and

6:30

when you take one sip, you won't need

6:32

any more. You're

6:35

small as a beetle, big as a whip,

6:39

atomic cocktail. So

6:43

let's say you were visiting Vegas for a weekend in 1956.

6:46

You'd pick up a calendar issued by the

6:48

Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, with a

6:51

schedule of all the bomb tests on it. To

6:53

get in the mood, maybe you'd put on a

6:55

hit song like this one by Slim Gaylord. It's

6:57

a great example of how atomic bombs were playfully

7:00

woven into the pop culture of the time. Then

7:03

take a seat and grab an atomic

7:05

cocktail. That's vodka, brandy, and champagne with

7:07

a splash of sherry. And

7:10

then, just maybe, you'd make a stop to

7:12

get your hair done. And a lot

7:14

of the casinos had hairdo

7:16

areas for the women, and there

7:18

was a fashionable mushroom, kind

7:21

of bun-style hairdo that the women

7:23

would get when they came to Las Vegas. That's

7:26

a hairdo that resembles a mushroom cloud. Atomic

7:29

imagery was everywhere. At

7:31

the museum, Michael brings me over to this

7:33

amazing case full of bomb-shaped salt and

7:35

pepper shakers, Christmas ornaments with

7:37

atoms on them. There's even

7:40

a local high school yearbook with a mushroom

7:42

cloud on the cover. You know,

7:44

you had atomic cereal, you had atomic

7:46

toys, you had atomic candy, I mean,

7:48

everything. It was the atomic

7:50

age. You'd even see the atomic

7:52

branding used in local marketing. You

7:55

might pass the New Frontier Hotel and see that

7:57

they were billing this little-known guy from Memphis as...

8:00

the world's first atomic-powered singer.

8:03

His name, by the way, is Elvis

8:05

Presley. But

8:08

the real show comes later. For

8:10

that, you've got to climb up to the roof of the casino. Settle

8:13

in, because we'll be here all night. As

8:16

Don approaches, turn toward the northwest.

8:28

When they went off, it made a broad

8:30

daylight. You see pictures of these things, and you

8:32

don't realize they were taken in the dark, because

8:35

it looks like high noon, because of

8:37

the brightness that the atomic bombs made.

8:43

Between 1940 and 1950, the population of Las Vegas nearly tripled. Thanks

8:49

in large part to the defense industry. And

8:52

tourism exploded, too, reaching 8

8:54

million visitors annually by 1954. Visitors

8:58

were drawn by the casinos and

9:00

the rap pack and the biggest

9:02

show of all, the bomb tests. The

9:05

atomic age was fun and

9:07

games and good times. Until

9:11

it wasn't. These

9:15

are particles of radioactive fallout.

9:19

Should there be a nuclear attack, many

9:21

billions of them would fall from the sky

9:23

and settle to Earth, releasing

9:25

radiation that could cause sickness or death

9:28

in the area where they fall. Michael

9:32

brings me over to another photo of a mushroom cloud. It

9:35

looks a lot like the others that we've seen, but

9:37

this one is infamous. You

9:39

can see here, this was a shot called Harry. And

9:42

it stirred up all

9:44

this dust and stuff, and that got fucked up in

9:46

the vacuum of the nuclear explosion. Because

9:49

of a miscalculation and a last-minute

9:51

change in wind direction, this bomb

9:53

test, known as Harry, dropped more

9:55

radioactive fallout than any other continental

9:57

US test. That wasn't good. In

10:01

fact, this shot was later nicknamed Dirty Harry

10:04

because this was probably the worst one. People

10:07

started realizing that this radiation stuff

10:09

was actually really dangerous.

10:12

And things kept escalating. In

10:15

1961, the Soviets tested Tsar

10:17

Bomba. It was 1,500 times

10:20

more powerful than the bombs dropped

10:22

on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Then

10:26

came October 1962, the Cuban

10:29

Missile Crisis. The planet

10:31

is brought to the brink of nuclear war.

10:34

Something had to change. So

10:36

in August of 1963, President Kennedy went on TV

10:39

and announced a major agreement between the

10:44

US and the USSR. Negotiations

10:47

were concluded in Moscow

10:50

on a treaty to ban all nuclear

10:52

tests in the atmosphere, in

10:54

outer space and underwater. The

10:57

Partial Test Ban Treaty marked the end

10:59

of nuclear tests in, as

11:02

Kennedy laid out in his incredible

11:04

Massachusetts accent, the atmosphere

11:07

in outer space and underwater.

11:10

That meant, obviously, no more

11:12

above-ground tests outside Las Vegas. But

11:15

there was one place that atomic tests could

11:18

still be conducted, underground. Back

11:21

at the museum, our tour through the tunnel of

11:24

time continues. And Michael leads me

11:26

through an actual giant tunnel, about 10 feet

11:28

wide. This is actually

11:30

a piece of a tunnel where they exploded a

11:32

nuclear bomb. Nearby

11:35

is a collection of enormous metal drill

11:37

bits, like the size of a person's

11:39

thigh at least. But one

11:41

thing we started to do was drilling

11:44

deep vertical holes and

11:47

tested bombs deep underground, 1,000, 1,500 feet. Atomic

11:51

bomb tests were no longer a public

11:53

spectacle. But even if they were

11:56

underground and out of sight, they were now

11:58

a source of public concern. He

12:00

got to the point where the literally got

12:02

to the point where Las Vegas did not

12:04

want to address the issue in any way.

12:08

They want to turn to come to

12:11

town. They didn't have any. So I'm

12:13

seventy one, immense and nuclear weapons and

12:15

in or the sixties and seventies. I

12:17

mean people were scared of things like

12:19

radiation, a nuclear war so this was

12:21

my then an ugly susceptible to him

12:23

or talk about it. In the

12:26

late nineteen sixties, billionaire Howard Hughes

12:28

bought up a bunch of land

12:30

and casinos and Vegas and he

12:33

became obsessed and incensed by the

12:35

underground last that would seek the

12:38

floors of his casino. He

12:40

was one on this campaign to stop the tests. He.

12:42

Even allegedly offered then President Lyndon

12:45

Johnson a million dollars when he

12:47

left office if he stood the

12:49

test immediately. Fuses, Obviously

12:52

a bit of an eccentric, but it

12:54

was a symbol of how much things

12:56

had changed. Vegas had moved on from

12:58

the business of selling the atomic case.

13:06

The Us piss off to full scale undergone

13:08

testing and ninety. Ninety Two. But.

13:11

The story isn't over. As we wrap up,

13:13

Artur Michael says me a spot in the

13:15

museum as roped off. Under construction and

13:17

in here and a couple months is going

13:19

to brand new exhibit on starts house thirds

13:22

of because that is a lot of what

13:24

goes on at the Modern Society. They.

13:26

Stockpile stewardship. In

13:28

other words, out there and the Nevada

13:30

desert, there are still workers who are

13:32

maintaining and running tests on America's Easing

13:35

South Pile of nuclear weapons. Just

13:37

in case. Because every every year the national

13:39

labs after sure the President or Stockpile

13:41

is safe, secure, reliable. The test site

13:44

is still a test site to make

13:46

that possible. And sure that

13:48

you've seen the news lately, there's worries

13:50

that muscle will. Use It's nuclear weapons

13:52

in Ukraine. Iran's. Probably

13:54

making a bomb. michael

13:57

tells me that when stories like this hit the

13:59

headlines People come to the museum and

14:01

they ask him questions about it. Atomic

14:04

history isn't all in the past. It's

14:07

still being written. Music Before

14:14

we leave the museum, I double back to

14:16

an exhibit that I missed before. It's a

14:18

movie theater that shows a simulation of an atom

14:20

bomb test. There's the countdown and

14:22

the boom. Knowing what I know

14:24

today, it's even harder to

14:26

get in the mindset of someone from

14:29

the 1950s who saw this as just

14:31

pure entertainment. Instead, as

14:33

I come out of the theater, honestly,

14:35

I'm a little rattled. That

14:38

was scary. And

14:43

then we exit through the gift shop and out

14:46

into the Las Vegas sun, heading

14:48

back to the party. Music The

14:56

National Atomic Testing Museum is open

14:59

Thursday through Tuesday. Reserve your

15:01

tickets online at nationalatomictestingmuseum.org.

15:05

Special thanks to Michael Hall for telling

15:08

me the story of America's atomic age.

15:10

Music Our

15:20

podcast is a co-production of Atlas Obscura

15:22

and Witness Docs. The production

15:24

team includes Doug Baldinger Chris Naka

15:26

Camille Stanley Willis Ryder Arnold Sarah

15:29

Wyman Manolo Morales Baudelaire

15:31

Seuss Gianna Palmer Tracy

15:34

Samuelson John Delore Tanaka Maria

15:37

Mueva Vadila Ellie Katz Our

15:40

technical director is Casey Holford This episode

15:42

was mixed by Luce Flomming Our

15:45

theme in end credit music is by Sam

15:47

Tyndall, and if you would like to learn

15:49

more, head over to atlasobscura.com. There

15:51

is a link in the episode description. I'm

15:55

Amanda McGowan, wishing you all the wonder in

15:57

the world. See you next time. Witness

16:02

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