Guests at the Last Frontier watch a nuclear blast, at the top of the photo, in 1953. (Image: Las Vegas News Bureau)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u201cThe site was chosen because it was a lot cheaper to have one site where the national labs developing these weapons could bring them,\u201d Kent said. \u201cAnd it made sense logistically because Las Vegas only had about 25K residents back then.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biggest atmospheric test was Operation Plumbbob in 1957. That blast packed 74 kilotons, or 74K tons of TNT, which equaled five Hiroshima bombs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cThe goal really was to make the weapons more efficient and powerful, but at the same time, test smaller weapons that could hit specific targets,\u201d Kent explained.<\/p>\n
Operation Teapot, a series of 14 explosions conducted in the first half of 1955, measured how houses, household items, food, shelters, metal buildings, equipment, and mannequins (standing in for humans) survived at various distances from a blast.<\/p>\n
Nuclear Attraction<\/h2>\n The mushroom clouds rising over the Nevada desert, one every three weeks or so, proved a spectacular tourist attraction. Visitation surged as Las Vegas nicknamed itself \u201cthe Atomic City.\u201d Copa Room showgirl Lee Merlin posed in a mushroom-cloud swimsuit and was photographed as \u201cMiss Atomic Bomb.\u201d Even the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, erected in 1959, employed the atomic-age design style known as Googie.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the early \u201950s, the bomb captured the imagination of the American public,\u201d Kent said. \u201cEverything from company logos to TV shows were atomic-themed. An episode of \u2018I Love Lucy\u2019 showed Lucy prospecting for uranium.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n
Though the US provided no information about the type of weapons being tested, the tests themselves were hardly top secret. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce printed calendars listing detonation times, suggested viewing locations, and scheduled viewing parties. The Sky Room at the Desert Inn hosted a popular one. So did Virginia\u2019s Caf\u00e9 downtown, which rebranded itself in 1952 and added a rooftop bar for blast viewing. (The Atomic Caf\u00e9 is now the oldest free-standing bar in Las Vegas.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\nThe sleeve from this 2012 single from Las Vegas’ The Killers features the famous photo of showgirl Lee Merlin posing as Miss Atomic Bomb. (The Killers)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWatching from Las Vegas was deemed safe at the time, though a $100 million compensation package offered by the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 to all residents of nearby Nevada, Utah, and Arizona able to link cancers and other diseases to their exposure to the fallout suggests otherwise.<\/p>\n
As part of that package, scheduled to sunset on June 10, 2024, those who were downwind of the explosions can receive $50K each.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people really go the extra mile to normalize things to make them less scary,\u201d Kent said. \u201cLet’s make it something fun and silly, so it doesn’t make it seem as scary anymore. If only people back then knew the consequences of what they were watching, it probably wouldn’t have seemed so thrilling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Underground Zero<\/h2>\n After a while, the novelty of rising plumes of death wore off and atomic tourism fizzled. By 1963, with the Cuban Missile Crisis over, fears dwindled and the US, Soviet Union, and the UK signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty. This prohibited nuclear weapons tests in the air, underwater, and in space.<\/p>\n
The treaty came as a result of the public becoming more aware of the dangers of testing,\u201d Kent said. \u201cThere was a call for doing something different, either ceasing testing or finding a safer way to do it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The US performed 828 total underground tests at the Nevada Test Site. The reason this wasn\u2019t common knowledge is because none of the tests produced a mushroom cloud or any fallout that anyone had to be alerted about, only the occasional ground rumble and some massive, still-existing on-site craters.<\/p>\n