Quick Fixes
LOST CITY MUSEUM
OV E R T O N
Archaeological digs in the 1920s uncovered the Lost City, home to Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) people who dwelled in pit houses and pueblos from 300 B.C. to A.D. 1350. But in the 1930s, this remarkable discovery was nearly drowned by Lake Mead, its waters rising behind the newly constructed Hoover Dam. As water seeped into the valley, archaeologists dug up cultural items—tools, pottery, baskets, beads and turquoise pendants—that are now on display, along with black-and-white photos documenting the excavation. You can also peer into an authentic pit house or view a reconstructed pueblo cluster.
NEVADA STATE MUSEUM’S BASKETRY VAULT C A R S O N C I T Y
PYRAMID LAKE PAIUTE TRIBE MUSEUM AND VISITORS CENTER N I X O N Cobalt Pyramid Lake—often called the West’s most beautiful desert lake—is marked by starkly gorgeous tufa formations, including The Pyramid’s conical mound and the Stone Mother, which looks like a shrouded Native woman seated next to an open basket. On the lake’s treeless shoreline, a striking Hopi-designed stone museum houses exhibits explaining the lake’s significance to the Paiute people.
EXPLORE
Ancient Sites
GRIMES POINT southeast of Fallon View ancient drawings: symbols etched in boulders centuries ago.
HIDDEN CAVE near Grimes Point Indigenous people stored a trove of baskets, tools and arrowpoints here.
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ABOVE Tour a village of replica ancient pueblo dwellings at the Lost City Museum in Overton. LEFT Dollmaking is one of the tribal traditions celebrated at the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe Museum and Visitors Center in Nixon. The late Dennis Numkena, a renowned Hopi architect, designed the unique structure.
LOVELOCK CAVE south of Lovelock First opened to the public in 1912, it yielded 20,000 artifacts.
Tucked in a climate-controlled vault are roughly 3,000 American Indian basketry items, including water bottles, trays, hats and duck decoys. The cache features 19 baskets made by famed Washoe weaver Dat So La Lee. Her meticulously crafted pieces, woven between 1896 and 1925 in Carson City and Lake Tahoe, helped incite the early 20th-century "basket craze," a bustling trade fueled by eager collectors as part of the Arts and Crafts Movement. American Indian baskets are still a coveted commodity. Curator of Cultural Collections Anna Camp says today’s collectors “would pay close to $1 million for a Dat So La Lee basket.” Public tours of the basketry vault are held on the last Friday of every month, but visitors can also request a private tour.
b e r e s p ect f u l
Help preserve this history for future generations— don't touch the petroglyphs.
TOQUIMA CAVE near Austin Western Shoshone artists painted images 1,500-plus years ago.
HICKISON PETROGLYPH RECREATION AREA near Austin Hike to prehistoric art and epic views.