Quirky Nevada - Silver State Oddities and Unusual Attractions

NEVADA LEGENDS

Quirky Nevada - Roadside Oddities & Attractions

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Quirky Nevada

Goldwell Open Air Museum

M&M's World

Nevada Fun Facts & Trivia

Rhyolite Bottle Building

Stokes Castle in Austin

Thunder Mountain Park

Out in the middle of the desert on NV Highway 373, stands this very large dairy cow. Did we take a wrong turn and wind up in Iowa? Nope, there really is a dairy farm out there in the middle of nowhere. April, 2005, Kathy Weiser.

Rhyolite, Nevada Bottle Building - In 1906, in the old ghost town of Rhyolite, Nevada a saloon owner named Tom Kelly, built a house out of bottles because lumber was scarce at the time. Reportedly he used some 50,000 beer, whiskey, soda and medicine bottles to build the structure which still stands today. Mr. Kelley was 76 years old when he built the house and it took him almost six months to complete.

The bottle house was restored and re-roofed by Paramount Pictures in 1925 for a movie setting. Afterwards it was given to the Beatty Improvement Association for maintenance as a historical site.

It was leased to Louis J. Murphy and maintained as a museum by him and a woman named Bessie Stratton Moffat until he died in 1956. Later, Mr. and Mrs. Tommy Thompson also lived in it, maintaining a museum and a relic shop.

Tommy was a musician who played his accordion in the saloons of Rhyolite when it was a boom town. When the Thompsons died, their son, Evan Thompson maintained it for a while. He was the last known person to live in the house; but now resides in Pioneer, Nevada.

Next to the bottle house is a "garden" of sculptures made of broken glass including miniature houses, bottle ropes, and whole bunch more glass junk, er... treasures.

The bottle house isn't the only quirky thing in Rhyolite. You'll also see the Goldwell Open Air Museum.

Goldwell Open Air Museum

The Last Supper, sculpture by Charles Albert Szukalski, 1984, photo April, 2005, Kathy Weiser.

As you near the old town site of Rhyolite, you will see what is called the Goldwell Open Air Museum. Here, a group of Belgian artists created seven large scale outdoor sculptures in the midst of the Mojave desert, the most impressive of which is a ghostly interpretation of the "Last Supper." There is also a 25-foot high pink woman made of cincer blocks, a 24-foot high steel prospector accompanied by a penguin, a blossoming tangle of gleaming chrome car parts; and an exquisitely carved winged woman reaching for the sun from high atop a wooden pillar.

Rhyolite Contact Information:

Rhylolite.com

M&M's World - This may be the most delicious attraction in Las Vegas, not to mention one of the most popular.

Located in the Showcase Mall, the mouth-watering exhibit features a multitude of life size M&M's hawking everything from t-shirts to scores of the popular candy in every color under the rainbow plus silver and gold.

A tour of the entire site is available ending with a 3-D movie featuring Red and Yellow's trip to Vegas. When Red loses his "M" at the poker table, the two take a journey to the land of the lost to retrieve it. Viewers are rewarded with a surprise treat upon their exit.

M&M World in Las Vegas, Nevada, April, 2005,

Kathy Weiser

The attraction adds its own gaudy sign to the Strip -- a 3D 40-foot long M&M's bag shaking out candy. Three M&M's characters, 15 to 19 feet tall, entice Strip denizens to come inside. One see-thru wall of a second-floor store is filled from floor to ceiling with . . . M&M's.

Hours are 9 am-11 pm, Sunday-Thursday and 9 am-12 am Friday-Saturday

Contact Information:

M&M's World
3785 S. Las Vegas Blvd.
Las Vegas, Nevada 89109
(702) 736-7611

Continued Next Page

"Glass Garden" near the Bottle House in Rhyolite,

Nevada, April, 2005, Kathy Weiser.

Do you know of a quirky attraction that we should list on our Roadside Adventures, please send us an email.

A Tribute to Shorty Harris, sculpture by Fred Bervoets, 1994, photo April, 2005, Kathy Weiser.

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