State has more history than funds to save it

By Mike Trask

Saturday, Dec. 2, 2006 | 7:05 a.m.

Perhaps only in Southern Nevada would one of the oldest buildings in the state and a 45-year-old motel both be considered cultural gems.

But the similarity ends there. Because while dollars and effort are flowing into a campaign to salvage the lobby of La Concha, a motel built on the Las Vegas Strip in 1961, Kiel Ranch in North Las Vegas, a homestead settled in the mid-1800s, sits decaying, used mainly for high school beerfests.

"It is ironic," said Corinne Escobar, president of the Preservation Association of Clark County. "It would seem if we're so anxious to save something midcentury, we would be anxious to save something that's much older."

Sometime next year, the La Concha lobby is expected to be moved to a spot near Cashman Field.

Preservationists hope things also start moving at Kiel Ranch, the subject of failed plans going back nearly as many years as the La Concha has existed.

Proponents of both projects are looking to the state Cultural Affairs Commission for financial help. The Neon Museum, which owns La Concha, has requested $270,000 to help fund the cost of moving the lobby. North Las Vegas, which controls Kiel, wants more than $500,000 for its plans for the ranch.

The ranch and hotel lobby are just two of 42 sites in Nevada for which preservationists have submitted $11.3 million in requests to the commission. The commission will have only $3 million to award next year.

"Historically (the commission) has given almost everyone some funding, so the question is how much it is going to give," said Ron James, state historical preservation officer.

In this case, who gets what could tell much about how much Nevada values its past - and what parts of its past it values most.

Kiel Ranch has a Nevada Historical Marker and is listed on the National Historic Registry. But one building burned down in 1992, and the other major building is in a state of disrepair.

Plans to transform Kiel Ranch into a park have been scrapped repeatedly since the Carter administration. The only buildings built or repaired at the site have been part of an industrial park.

The La Concha lobby, on the other hand, has fared better while awaiting a move seen as key to its long-term preservation. The lobby, designed by Paul Revere Williams, a noted black architect, must be cut into pieces to fit under overpasses during the move.

The cultural commission allocated $270,000 for the project this year, and others have contributed more than $250,000 toward the move's $1 million cost.

The effort to preserve Kiel has traveled a rockier road, in part because the plan to do so is considerably more costly.

The county preservation group has deemed the ranch worthy of saving but doesn't have the funding to achieve that goal.

That leaves North Las Vegas hoping not just for funding from the state commission but also an $8 million-plus state appropriation and a federal Bureau of Land Management grant of about $350,000.

If the city gets every dollar it is seeking - and that's a very big if - it would have enough cash to start rebuilding history.

North Las Vegas has about $450,000 in a Kiel Ranch fund. The first step is to simply clean up the mess at the settlement, said Michelle Menart, a parks and recreation department planner. She said crews started pulling weeds last month.

Meanwhile, regular tours continue at the Neon Museum.

"The La Concha is extremely important," James said from his Reno office. "It's an architectural style that speaks to the history of Las Vegas. On the other hand, Kiel Ranch is one of the oldest buildings in the state. It's a different kind of importance."

In contrast to Kiel's traditional historical importance as a link to the region's roots, La Concha's roots extend back no further than the Rat Pack days.

"There's the mythic story of Vegas that everybody hears about," said Andrew Kirk, a UNLV history professor and the director of Preserve Nevada. "Then there's the community story of Las Vegas, where people lived and worked. Not everybody has heard about it."

One place people can start hearing about it is a ranch near the corner of Carey Avenue and Losee Road, with an adobe building built in 1855.

As the two projects compete for dollars - and for the hearts of Southern Nevadans - the outcome could show, to borrow Las Vegas' popular marketing slogan, exactly what portion of what happened here will stay here, or be allowed to disappear.

Or, to put it another way, which relic of the past is more deserving of being saved: a lobby from a motel where Mickey Rooney used to stay, or a 151-year-old adobe where some of the region's earliest settlers rested?