Abstract
The Pueblo Grande de Nevada Photograph Collection (approximately 1920-1980) contains black-and-white photographic prints, negatives, and slides depicting archaeological sites located in Overton, Moapa, Valley of Fire, Red Rock, Pyramid Lake, Kane Springs, Virgin River, the “Lost City,” and Lake Mead, Nevada. Images display the different stages of digging during the archaeological excavation of Pueblo Grande de Nevada. Also included are images showcasing artifacts uncovered during the excavations, the Saint Thomas, Nevada and the flooding of archaeological sites after the construction of the Hoover (Boulder) Dam.
Finding Aid PDF
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Scope and Contents Note
The Pueblo Grande de Nevada Photograph Collection (approximately 1920-1980) contains black-and-white photographic prints, negatives, and slides depicting archae0logical sites located in Overton, Moapa, Valley of Fire, Red Rock, Pyramid Lake, Kane Springs, Virgin River, the “Lost City,” and Lake Mead, Nevada. Images display the different stages of digging during the archaeological excavation of Pueblo Grande de Nevada. Also included are images showcasing artifacts uncovered during the excavations, the Saint Thomas, Nevada and the flooding of archaelogical sites after the construction of the Hoover (Boulder) Dam. Lastly, there are images of Civilian Conservation Corps. (CCC) workers excavating at different archaeological sites.
Access Note
Collection is open for research.
Publication Rights
Materials in this collection may be protected by copyrights and other rights. See Reproductions and Use on the UNLV Special Collections website for more information about reproductions and permissions to publish.
Arrangement
Materials remain as they were received.
Biographical / Historical Note
The Pueblo Grande de Nevada, also known as Nevada’s “Lost City,” was a Native American urban site occupied by Basketmaker, Hisatsinom, Puebloan (previously contextualized as Anasazi), and Paiute communities from 300 AD to 1150 AD. The city consisted of housing structures of twenty or more rooms, with one building containing more than one hundred rooms. Adjacent to the city were salt deposits that indigenous communities mined for trade throughout the region. Hoover Dam's Lake Mead reservoir eventually flooded the Pueblo Grande de Nevada site.
In 1924, John and Fay Perkins, two brothers from Overton, Nevada discovered artifacts in Moapa Valley, Nevada. The Perkins brothers notified Colonel James G. Scrugham, Governor of Nevada between 1923 and 1927, of their findings. As more discoveries were made during 1924, and the increasing conversations over Hoover Dam and its accompanying reservoir put the sites at risk, Governor Scrugham contacted Mark Raymond Harrington, an archaeologist working with the Heye Foundation’s Museum of the American Indian (MAI) in New York City, New York to record the sites before they were potentially ruined. The MAI funded the initial years of Harrington's research, but in 1934 the National Park Service took over funding for the archaeological digs. Harrington used Civilian Conservation Corps labor (Company 974 and 573), accompanied by Zuni workers, to preserve and catalog as many cultural items as possible before the valley was flooded for the creation of Lake Mead reservoir, which submerged the “Lost City” along with the town of Saint Thomas, Nevada.
Harrington and his staff worked throughout the 1920s excavating, photographing, and cataloging the physical remains of burials, Native American cultural objects, and housing structures. Photographs and saved objects from numerous sites under Harrington’s management were housed in the Lost City Museum of Archaeology (formerly the Boulder Dam Park Museum) located in Overton, Nevada.
Sources:
“The Lost City.” The National Park Service website, accessed on August 15, 2018. https://www.nps.gov/lake/learn/the-lost-city.htm
Harry, Karen G. and James T. Watson. “The Archaeology of Pueblo Grande de Nevada: Past and Current Research within Nevada’s ‘Lost City.’”
Preferred Citation
Pueblo Grande de Nevada Photograph Collection, approximately 1920-1980. PH-00143. Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Acquisition Note
Materials were received by UNLV Special Collections and Archives; accession number 2020-077.
Processing Note
In 2020, as part of an archival backlog elimination project, James Howard processed the materials, wrote the finding aid, and entered the data into ArchivesSpace.