Springs Preserve (Las Vegas Springs)

Springs Preserve at 333 S Valley View Boulevard, west of downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, occupies the site of the artesian springs that made the valley habitable and gave the city its name. For thousands of years Native peoples, including Southern Paiute communities, used the springs and wetlands, and in 1829 and 1830 the Old Spanish Trail brought traders and travelers who stopped at the meadows, which Spanish-speaking travelers called Las Vegas. The springs later supplied the Mormon fort of 1855 and ranchers, and in 1905 the railroad townsite relied on the water to grow, with the springs flowing until pumping lowered the water table in the early twentieth century. The preserve is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is now a 180-acre campus of museum buildings, gardens and trails operated by the Las Vegas Valley Water District. Exhibits include the Nevada State Museum, Las Vegas, covered in the admission, which interprets the region's natural and cultural history, including Ice Age fossils and Native heritage. The preserve also has galleries on water use and sustainability, botanical gardens with desert plants, the Origen Museum on desert life and culture, and trails that pass spring sites and archaeological interpretation. The curatorial approach combines thematic exhibits with outdoor interpretation, linking water history with present-day conservation. Restoration work has returned parts of the wetlands and landscape to a more natural condition, and the historic spring area is protected within the campus. Because the site sits several miles west of the Strip, it offers a quieter view of Las Vegas history that is unrelated to gaming, and it is a useful stop for visitors who want to understand why a city grew in the Mojave Desert at all.