Time is ticking on Centennial display

Photos will be packed away in March

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Time is running out to view the 100 Years of Las Vegas Images.

The photographic exhibit celebrates the Las Vegas Centennial and is on display at the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society in Lorenzi Park, 700 Twin Lakes Drive. It will be taken down during the first week of March.

The display includes a photo of the 30-foot-tall Dunes sultan under construction, a marquee for Ed Sullivan, false-front buildings on Fremont Street and the rotunda at the Las Vegas Convention Center surrounded by raw land.

There also is a Helldorado scene with Roy Rogers, on which a display card notes that his movie of the same title was spelled with one "L," to assuage strict censors.

Exhibit preparer Wes Southerland said his favorite shot is one of construction workers hanging by a cable, high above Hoover Dam.

"Just that they could do that, be up that high," he said.

Southerland and exhibit curator Tom Dyer have the task of packing up the exhibit, which will take about two days. Pictures that are originals will be handled first, wrapped in paper and stacked horizontally, their boxes taking the brunt of any weight placed atop them. They will be stored in the back where temperature and humidity levels are stabile and insects will be kept at bay.

The men will wear surgeon-like gloves to avoid accidentally leaving fingerprints on the photographs. Most importantly, they said, the originals have to be kept from light. Even the overhead lights at the museum must have filters to avoid damaging the images.

"I've been at a swap meet and seen people selling old photos and they have them on display on a table, right out in the sun. They don't know how damaging that is," said Dyer. "It drives me nuts when I see that."

Lack of light is a main component to preserving the pictures, but so are chemicals. Regular paper and cardboard boxes emit gases which can lead to deterioration. The key to avoiding that fate is acid-free packing materials.

Pictures that are copies also will be handled gently, but without such painstaking care.

Asked if they ever get hasty and tear a corner, both men shook their heads.

"We never make a mistake -- that we admit to," Dyer joked.

Much of the display will be easy to dismantle. But one photo presents a challenge. It is a 16-foot-long aerial shot of the Strip, taken in 1977 from a airplane flying 50 feet above. An original, it will have to be removed from its case and gently rolled up one inch at a time.

Another aerial shot in the exhibit shows much of the Las Vegas Valley. The two overhead views are probably the most studied in the exhibit.

The museum also recently received a new aerial photograph which shows Las Vegas in the late 1980s.

"It's just sitting in the back until we decide what to do with it," said Barbara Slivac, curator of education. "Everybody who sees it wants to know about it, and that's just the people who work here."

Until another exhibit includes it, that new aerial photograph will stay behind the scenes, keeping company with the 100 Years of Las Vegas Images.