My favorite part of the Nevada State Museum is the Ghost Town Exhibit. Nevada is known for casinos, mines and ghost towns, for the most part. It is also known for deserts and military bases. The Ghost Town Exhibit shows the progression from a tent city to a thriving town to a town that had been abandoned after the mines played out. Most of Nevada's towns were founded as a result of mining booms. Outside of the two major population centers--the Las Vegas area and the Reno/Carson City area, most of Nevada's towns are still in the boom-and-bust cycle of the mining industry. Nevada is the closest approximation we have today of the Wild West days and the repeated mining booms that led to the settlement of the West and this country's expansion from coast to coast.
There is also a Mining Exhibit with a re-created underground mine shaft complete with tunnel that leads from a museum room to the mine chamber. Inside the mine chamber, there a tools that were commonly used in mines, such as pick axe, shovel, hard hat, dynamite stick, lantern and many other things.
The "Changing Earth Exhibit" has a display of an authentic Columbian Mammoth that was found in the Black Rock Desert of northwestern Nevada. It is estimated to be 1,750,000 years old.
There is an exhibit called "Under One Sky" that details that American Indian habitation of Nevada over the past 10,000 years. There is a large collection of woven baskets and artifacts from the Indian culture. There is also a related exhibit called "Rock Art Gallery."
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