Sheryln Hayes-Zorn, a curator at the Nevada Historical Society, didn’t know where to start. In a cavernous room, she ran her gloved hands over one, of 500,000 vintage pictures: “This photo is probably turn of the century, about 1900."
Just about all of us cherish something. For Shery, it's old Nevada photos. As she told me, "Nevada photography is amazing. It's a snapshot of time."
Reno's rapidly changing. What used to be seems to be disappearing. But here at the “Wier and Mortensen Research Library”, time has stopped. This is where Nevada of days gone by remains. Shery says the library is part of the “Nevada Historical Society. We're the oldest cultural institution in the State of Nevada."
They've collected over 500,000 photos of our past, each one researched, named and catalogued…because history without photographs would be too distant. Shery says, "People are just looking for answers, and they just want to know what my family did and where they were, so it's quite fascinating."
Shery's fascination with the past began with curiosity, "How things happened, and how they evolved over time." And it’s all here. The old cars. The different things we did. A 1930 Nevada census, if you're interested. If you want to hobnob with history, you can see it all for yourself, like the buffalo of Idlewild Park...late 1920's: "We actually had people contact us saying, 'I remember buffalo back in the day!'”
There a picture of Nevada bootleggers in the 1920's busted by local untouchables: "They've actually captured all these stills for making bootleg alcohol." A busy night at the long-gone Mapes Casino at 1st and Virginia Streets. And the University of Nevada, 1938…a picture with more land and sagebrush than buildings and students: "What's fun about this, is you can see that there still is a lot of open space whereas today, you don't see that as the university continues to grow."
And its women's basketball team…of 1899: "They're not having to wear dresses and frills in this picture. They're actually getting to wear bloomers while playing the sport.”
The place is a Reno treasure. A huge vintage photo library, where you can look up years, buildings, newspapers, streets and more…and examine what time left behind.
There's more at the Nevada Historical Society's website.
Click below to discover more:
https://www.nvhistoricalsociety.org/
