From 1951 to 1992, the Nevada Test Site hosted 928 nuclear tests, 828 of them underground. The atmospheric tests - 100 detonations in the open air - produced mushroom clouds visible from Las Vegas, 65 miles to the southeast. Tourists gathered on casino rooftops to watch the dawn light up with nuclear fire; 'atomic cocktails' were served; beauty pageants crowned 'Miss Atomic Bomb.' The government assured everyone the fallout was harmless, even as it drifted over St. George, Utah, and other downwind communities. The cancers came later. The Nevada National Security Site, as it's now called, no longer conducts nuclear tests but remains heavily contaminated, its craters visible on satellite images, a landscape sacrificed to national security that can never be restored.
The Nevada Test Site was established in 1951, providing a domestic location for the nuclear testing previously conducted in the Pacific. The first test, Ranger Able, detonated on January 27, 1951. Over the next eleven years, 100 atmospheric tests followed, their mushroom clouds photographed, their shockwaves felt in Las Vegas, their fallout patterns tracked (and often concealed). When atmospheric testing was banned in 1963, testing moved underground; shaft and tunnel explosions continued until 1992. The total yield exceeded that of all conventional explosives used in World War II, concentrated in 1,360 square miles of desert that became permanently contaminated.
Las Vegas embraced its atomic neighbor. The Chamber of Commerce published calendars of test schedules so tourists could plan viewing. Hotels advertised dawn parties on rooftops and observation decks. Casinos served 'atomic cocktails.' The mushroom cloud became a marketing image, appearing on postcards and promotional materials. Miss Atomic Bomb beauty contests crowned women in mushroom cloud costumes. The cognitive dissonance seems impossible in retrospect - celebrating weapons designed to destroy cities - but the 1950s wrapped nuclear anxiety in patriotic enthusiasm. The bombs proved America's power; watching them became entertainment.
The Atomic Energy Commission assured downwind communities that fallout was harmless. It wasn't. Radioactive material drifted over St. George, Utah, and other communities to the east and north. Cancer rates spiked: leukemia clusters among children, thyroid cancers in adults, the 'downwinders' who paid for tests they never consented to. The government denied responsibility for decades; lawsuits eventually produced limited compensation. The full health toll remains unknown and unknowable. The assurances of safety were lies or self-deception; the evidence of harm was suppressed or ignored. The legacy continues in elevated cancer rates among those who were exposed.
The test site's surface is pocked with craters - subsidence holes where underground explosions collapsed overlying rock. Sedan Crater, created by a 1962 test examining 'peaceful' nuclear excavation, is 1,280 feet wide and 320 feet deep. The terrain is permanently contaminated; soil and water contain plutonium and other long-lived isotopes. The site is still used for 'subcritical' experiments that test weapons components without achieving nuclear chain reaction. Tours are offered periodically, visiting the craters and the preserved control buildings. The landscape that was sacrificed to the Cold War will remain radioactive for millennia, a monument to what national security once required.
The Nevada National Security Site offers public tours approximately monthly; registration is required months in advance. Tours depart from the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, which provides essential context for any visit. The museum interprets the Cold War's nuclear history through artifacts, films, and interactive exhibits. The ground zero tours visit craters, preserved structures, and the Sedan Crater overlook. Photography is restricted; citizenship verification is required. The experience is sobering - the scale of contamination, the casualness of early testing, the permanent cost to the landscape. Las Vegas's atomic heritage is otherwise invisible; the test site lies beyond the mountains visible from the Strip, its legacy both concealed and celebrated.
Located at 37.00°N, 116.05°W in the Nevada desert, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. From altitude, the Nevada National Security Site is visible as restricted terrain - the roads, test structures, and most prominently, the craters. Sedan Crater's massive bowl is visible from altitude; numerous smaller craters dot the landscape like lunar surface. The site is bounded by desert to the east and south; Nellis Air Force Range extends to the north. Las Vegas is visible to the southeast, the urban sprawl that grew in the shadow of mushroom clouds. What appears from altitude as cratered desert is the most intensively nuclear-bombed landscape on Earth - 928 tests, permanent contamination, and the Cold War's terrible logic made visible in the wounded land.