Route 66 & the desert southwest

Photo shared by Ralph Delligatti.

Photos by Dennis McBride, Nevada State Museum Las Vegas.

Fremont Street, 1942. Tourists experience the “Old West” while everyone else sits in traffic. Photo by Peter Stackpole. 

Shiprock, aka Tsé Bitʼaʼí in Navajo, “rock with wings” or “winged rock.” The Navajo name for the peak, Tsé Bitʼaʼí, “rock with wings” or “winged rock” is a reference to the legend of the great bird that brought the Navajo from the north to their present lands. Geologically, Shiprock is the erosional remnant of a volcano, composed of fractured volcanic breccia and black dikes of igneous rock called minette that form a wall extending from the volcanic core. It formed 2,500–3,000 feet beneath the Earth’s surface. The walls were fissures that filled with lava and hardened (like a jello mold). The hard, volcanic rock was exposed after millions of years of wind and water eroded the sorter sedimentary and metamorphic rock. The wall-like sheets, known as dikes, radiate away from the central formation. Radiometric age established an approximate age of 27 million years. Shiprock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field—a field that includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 30 million years ago. Agathla (El Capitan) in Monument Valley is another prominent volcanic neck in this volcanic field. (at Shiprock) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Pgf3pnqTc/?igshid=1r3qh0qa6c75z

Rear-view stock footage by Warner Bros, via Getty Images. The driving takes place on Fremont Street traveling west from 4th to 2nd. “Two Flags West” plays at El Portal Theatre, “Frenchie” at Fremont Theatre. The last shot facing the opposite direction at Fremont & 2nd. 

Lumber mill, El Vado, New Mexico Photographer: William H. Roberts Date: 1919? Negative Number 149910

Shiprock, aka Tsé Bitʼaʼí in Navajo, “rock with wings” or “winged rock.” The Navajo name for the peak, Tsé Bitʼaʼí, “rock with wings” or “winged rock” is a reference to the legend of the great bird that brought the Navajo from the north to their present lands. Geologically, Shiprock is the erosional remnant of a volcano, composed of fractured volcanic breccia and black dikes of igneous rock called minette that form a wall extending from the volcanic core. It formed 2,500–3,000 feet beneath the Earth’s surface. The walls were fissures that filled with lava and hardened (like a jello mold). The hard, volcanic rock was exposed after millions of years of wind and water eroded the sorter sedimentary and metamorphic rock. The wall-like sheets, known as dikes, radiate away from the central formation. Radiometric age established an approximate age of 27 million years. Shiprock is in the northeastern part of the Navajo Volcanic Field—a field that includes intrusions and flows of minette and other unusual igneous rocks that formed about 30 million years ago. Agathla (El Capitan) in Monument Valley is another prominent volcanic neck in this volcanic field. (at Shiprock) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9Pgf3pnqTc/?igshid=1r3qh0qa6c75z

Photographer: J.C. Burge Date: 1890? Negative Number: 076579

Riviera, July 1969. This was Dean Martin’s debut at the Riviera. Kodachrome, VLV.

Left: “Holiday Inn” aka Holiday Motel; Bagdad Motel; Glenn Vegas Motel (Fun City Motel). Estate sale find by Mike Ohlson

↩︎ plastixdude 

↩︎ plastixdude 

In the ♡ of downtown, built by the Franklin brothers in 1960, demolished in 2004, and replaced with The Ogden. The sign is now with the Neon Museum.

Neon & wet streets, Las Vegas, January 1983. Fremont Street at 1st & Casino Center Blvd. Photos by Meredith Jacobson Marciano. 

Photographer: Jesse Nusbaum Date: 1910 Negative Number: 139103

Village People in front of the Riviera, March 1981. (Dolly Parton coming Apr. 2)