Excavation project springs into action

Workers sift through shovelfuls of sand looking for evidence of prehistoric campers at one of three former artesian springs considered the birthplace of Las Vegas.

The search for any scrap left by wayfarers in Southern Nevada as early as 5,000 years ago is a labor of love for archaeologist Greg Seymour and his team excavating the collapsed shell of a shelter erected over Little Spring to protect the city's first source of drinking water from contamination.

It's part of a larger labor by the Las Vegas Valley Water District to restore historical parts of the crude system that once delivered water to residents living on and around Fremont Street, so that generations from now Las Vegans can see evidence of their history at this site.

The excavation began last week according to strict archaeological guidelines, using money from a Nevada Commission on Cultural Affairs grant of $44,000.

Most people whiz by the spring, south of U.S. 95, east of Valley View Boulevard and north of Alta Drive. Cottonwood trees create a natural green island in the center of a sea of urban pavement.

Behind the trees Seymour and his team have dug a 5-foot-wide trench around the Little Springs House to look for significant artifacts from the Anazasi Indians, who are known to have traveled through the area about 5,000 years ago. If they find evidence of the ancient people, they will dig under the historic house looking for more, and plans to preserve the house will have to be revisited.

If the trench yields nothing from the Anazasi -- and experts believe the Indians camped at a site about a mile from the house -- or other significant finds, then the dig will move to other sites on the 180 acres. The push is to finish by May 15, 2005, the city of Las Vegas' centennial and the date the Las Vegas Springs Preserve is due to open to the public.

By April the water district hopes to have a staircase built into the steep creekbed leading to the spring. The stairs will allow visitors a path to follow down to a hands-on experience at the spring house. "We have so much work to do in such a short period of time," Seymour said.

Spring Mound, a spot not yet studied on the water district's north well field, holds pottery shards, Seymour said. Eighty percent of those shards are Anazasi. "So we know it was a major encampment here," he said.

By camping on the mound, the Anazasi had a perfect view of the entire valley and they stayed away from the springs, a precious source of water sustaining both people and animals in the dry, hot Las Vegas Valley.

About 1,150 the Anazasi left the region for unknown reasons. Then the Southern Paiutes and Patayan tribes came and camped around the springs for roughly 400 years.

Only the Southern Paiutes remained when the first explorers, Spanish missionaries, arrived in the 18th century and called the area "Las Vegas," which means "The Meadow."

In 1844 explorer John C. Fremont added the oasis to his expedition map. Pioneers, prospectors and missionaries soon refilled their water supply at the springs.

The Mormon settlers came to the area in the 1850s to start a settlement.

The springs explain why so many people were attracted to the area that stretched from Valley View Boulevard to where Cashman Field stands at Las Vegas Boulevard North and Washington Avenue. Water supported residents, livestock, vegetable gardens and fruit orchards by the turn of the century.

Until the Union Pacific and other railroads pushed iron tracks across the West, Las Vegas was little more than a watering hole for the foot-weary and saddle-sore.

Along the way the three springs were named Big Spring, Middle Spring and Little Spring. "I think Goldilocks must have named the springs," water district spokesman J.C. Davis said with a laugh.

Davis turns more serious when talking about the tract of land three miles west of downtown that represents perhaps the richest place in the valley when it comes to cultural and and biological resources. It is home to the endangered Las Vegas bear poppy and the reclusive desert pocket mouse, which before local biologists spotted it on the site had not been seen in Las Vegas for more than 100 years.

The wildlife began to be driven out when society started moving in.

After Las Vegas became a city in 1905, residents relied on gravity to bring drinking water from the gushing Little Spring to the Fremont Street area, Seymour said.

In 1917 the Las Vegas Land and Water Co. built the Little Spring House to keep people, animals and insects out of the drinking water. At the time the structure had a flat roof, its beams and sides made from redwood lumber hauled from California.

A concrete basin with a pipe, sunk in the basin's northeast corner, ran underground and carried the free-flowing water downhill.

In 1923 a settling basin was added to remove the solids bobbing in the spring's waters.

By 1928 city officials realized a flat roof over Little Spring wasn't such a good idea, because public access threatened the water supply. On Saturday nights people came to the spring house to picnic and to dance on its roof. The rest of the time cows wandered over it at will, fouling the water.

So a pitched roof appeared, covered in three layers of tar paper and painted silver. That kept cowhands and cattle off the spring. But it wasn't a permanent solution. In time the roof collapsed.

Still the pitched roof protected the spring and the water quality improved. "The water quality was excellent except for little fish that came out of someone's tap occasionally," Davis said. No one knows what kind of fish they were, maybe minnows, he said.

Historians working with the water district have focused on the Little Spring House because it is so well preserved. No one wants it to collapse, Davis said.

Those restoring the house will try to use the same methods and materials as the original architects.

Crews will repair cracks in the foundation, replace some of the wood on the roof while saving as much of the old lumber as possible and paint the wood "railroad red."

Even the neat, straight rows of nails will stay true to the old roof.

Since the Las Vegas Springs Archaeological Site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 through the efforts of retired UNLV archaeologist Claude Warren and his historian wife Elizabeth, the site has remained uncultivated until the Nevada Department of Transportation proposed to pave over Little Spring in a widening project for U.S. 95.

But public protests and a renewed interest in the site has launched a Las Vegas Springs Preserve Foundation led by Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone, who serves on the Las Vegas Valley Water District's board, Janie Greenspun Gale, a member of the Greenspun family, which owns the Las Vegas Sun, Nevada Resort Association Director Richard Bunker, University Regent Thalia Dondero, Clark County Commissioner Mary Kincaid, Las Vegas Councilman Michael McDonald, State Sen. Ray Rawson, County Commission Chairman Bruce Woodbury and historian Frank Wright.

So what happened to the three bubbling artesian springs that fed Las Vegas for thousands of years?

Booming population growth dried them up by the mid-1950s. The city turned to the Colorado River for water from Lake Mead by 1971. Today more than 85 percent of Southern Nevada's water is supplied from the river. The rest comes from ground water, the rights dating back to the early settlers.

archive