The Bill Willard Photograph Collection depicts Las Vegas, Nevada, hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Valley, and Laughlin, Nevada from 1905 to 1919 and from 1940 to 1999. The photographs primarily depict hotels and casinos in Las Vegas, including the Sahara Hotel, Circus Circus Hotel and Casino, MGM Grand Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, Caesars Palace, Flamingo Hotel, and the Aladdin Hotel. The photographs also depict students at Nevada Southern University (predecessor of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas), the city of Las Vegas, industrial plants in Henderson and Apex, Nevada, and events in Laughlin, Nevada.

This collection is comprised of publicity photographs of Howard Hughes and his aircrafts, from approximately the 1940s to the 1950s, that were compiled by David Rea, former pilot for Hughes Aircraft Company. This collection also includes clippings and technical drawings of Hughes aircrafts.

The collection is comprised of architectural records (1947-2001) of American architect, Homer Rissman and the architectural firm, Rissman and Rissman Associates Ltd, a partnership of Homer Rissman and his brother Marshall. The collection includes 825 items from over 40 major projects and over 110 minor projects. The Rissmans' work represented in the collection focused on Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe, Nevada, Los Angeles, Southern California, and Arizona, with Homer's early career design work in Chicago, Illinois. The materials feature hand-drawn architectural drawings, ranging from pencil and ink on tracing paper preliminary sketches to ink on Mylar (TM) construction documents, and a number of artist’s renderings, used for presentations and promotional materials. The drawings also contain work from a number of consultants, engineers, and other architects who collaborated on the development of the various projects. The collection includes architectural drawings for: hotels, casinos, integrated casino resorts, office towers, multi-family residential developments, and custom single-family homes.