Red Rock center exhibit gets update

Old displays revamped and interactive additions made before this month's opening

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The displays had dated photographs. The taxidermy animals were dusty and chewed by worms. Information was delivered by audio hand-held wands. All in all, the exhibit hall at Red Rock Canyon Conversation Area's Visitors Center was, well, uninspiring.

All that's changed.

Unveiled on March 7, the 24-year-old exhibition hall has been updated.

"The old exhibits were from 1982," said Athena Sparks, lead naturalist for the Red Rock Canyon Interpretive Association. "Like, the recreation display, it was clearly from the 1970s when you look at those hairstyles."

The revamping has added a wall of TV monitors, a climber in the midst of scaling a rock face, the worn stones American Indians used for grinding flour from pinion nuts, and information that switches the focus from the Spanish Trail to Red Rock Canyon and its wonders.

Sparks called the old exhibits "stand-alones" -- no interaction required, just pause and look before moving on.

"We used to have the wand tours so you didn't hear people (visitors) say much," she said. "Now you hear a lot of wows."

Debbie Wright, park ranger, said her favorite display is the geology one.

"It attracted my attention right away," she said. "It must be because the lighting and color make it stand out."

People on bus tours -- which cannot get close to petroglyphs, images etched in stone, or the foundation of the old homestead -- now can learn about those things in the exhibition hall.

Seven pieces of rock with vandalized petroglyphs send a sobering message about society. They are on display to discourage such selfish acts. The smallest is about the size of an 8-by-10 photo, the largest, about 27-by-14 inches. Together, they weigh as much as 600 pounds, making it the most difficult display to construct and mount.

Red Rock Canyon has both petroglyphs and pictographs, images painted or drawn on stone. Seeing them behind glass caused one visitor to wonder at the intent and he was asked if they should be removed.

"If they took a hammer and broke them off just to bring them here, I'd say no, don't (display them)," said Jim Scott of North Carolina. "But if they were already damaged, this will probably prevent someone from vandalizing more of them."

The only exhibit that remains from the 1982 effort is the one of bighorn sheep, judged to have significance for the exhibition. While the bighorn sheep are actual specimens, any new animal exhibits are sculpted with synthetic but lifelike materials, an effort to move away from taxidermy work.

Wands are being revamped to properly represent the displays in various languages.

The effort necessitated closing down the exhibit hall in September. The cost to revamp the hall was roughly $280,000. The money came from land sales.

Not everyone was overwhelmed by the new displays.

"It's interesting," said Jane Morgan, a housewife from Atlanta. "I think they spent a lot of money on the TV monitors but they only have half of them turned on."