Print Solutions Conference and Expo September 2007

Clark County Museum
1820 S. Boulder Hwy.
Henderson, NV 89015
(702) 455-7955

Hours of Operation:
Open daily, 9 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Cost: Adults $1.50, children 3-15
and seniors $1. Yearly memberships are also available at rates of $15 for seniors and students, $25 for individuals and $40 for families.

Directions: Approximately 20 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. From the Strip, take Interstate 15 South to Interstate 215 East. Get in the right-hand lane to turn right (South) on Interstate 515/93. Exit left (East) at Horizon Drive and turn right (South) on Boulder Highway.

On Heritage Street, visitors will find the Clark County Heritage Museum's replica of a 20th century print shop. Many of Nevada's oldest newspapers were printed with presses and equipment similar to those found in the shop today.

Not long ago “Sin City” was a slow, desert town off the San Pedro, Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad. Stores with tin roofs and false fronts were common in the early 1900s in Las Vegas and other towns throughout Southern Nevada. Turn-of-the-century residents would buy flour and beans at the dry goods store and a drink at the nearby saloon. Visitors passing through in search of land or fortune farther west could stay at a barebones hotel on Main Street.

To get a true feel of what it was like in old Las Vegas, go to the Clark County Heritage Museum in Henderson just 20 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. On a small tree-lined boulevard called Heritage Street, visitors can walk through eight historic structures; many of them restored buildings that were relocated from cities throughout Southern Nevada. One of those buildings is a replica of the print shops that might have been found in the old Las Vegas.

“It’s one of the very few buildings on Heritage Street that is a replica and not the original structure,” says Mark Ryzdynski, Clark County Heritage Museum curator. “Inside we have large presses, folders, cutters and a linotype machine. The equipment ranges in use from as early as 1900 to the 1950s. This was around the time that many papers around Las Vegas like the Las Vegas Age and the Henderson Home News were just getting started.”

The museum started to build Heritage Street in 1982. The print shop was either the third or fourth building erected with the help of funding from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation. Unlike other structures on Heritage Street, the print shop’s foundation had to be reinforced to support all the printing equipment.

“We did a little research regarding what a print shop might have looked like back then,” Ryzdynski says. “We tried to mimic the workflow set up that a real print shop would have had. We have one area for composition, another for printing and another for cutting.”

Toward the back of the print shop, visitors will find an early Chandler & Price Platen Press. “It was portable so an editor could move it by wagon or railroad when he needed to,” Ryzdynski says. “Then you have the Babcock drum cylinder press that would be more indicative of the later period of printing.”