My Nevada Neighbor By Doug Jablin

Las Vegan, Helen Mortenson

I developed an interest in archaeology through my neighbor Helen Mortenson, who is the president of the Las Vegas Ice Age Park Foundation.

Helen at a dig

She told me that in 1932, Fernley Hunter and Dr. Albert Silberling unearthed the bones of two ground sloths, a camelops (the largest of the American camels), and a partial skeleton of a mammoth in Tule Springs which is located in North Las Vegas. This discovery led to the Big Dig in 1962 which revealed an absolute treasure trove of Pleistocene history.

Fossil discovered in southern Nevada

Tens of thousands of years ago Tule Springs was a lush, wet, ecosystem that supported Colombian mammoths, camels, horses, ground sloths, dire wolves and saber-toothed cats. In the 1960s interested Las Vegans like Helen and her husband Harry, who later became a Nevada State assemblyman, helped the UNLV archaeologists on their digs in the Las Vegas valley and throughout the state. It took years to establish the area as a state park, but in January 2017, Governor Brian Sandoval announced the 315-acre state Ice Age Fossil Park. The visitor center's grand opening was January 20, 2024. Helen downplays her importance, but without her persistence and networking I highly doubt the park would have been realized.

Helen Mortenson riding in a Las Vegas parade

What’s amazing is that at 89 years old, Helen is still working to establish a research museum and library for the artifacts discovered in the digs, much of this material has been taken away from Las Vegas and is housed in other locations. Hopefully, one day we can all see the rewards of her efforts in a museum, with the returned artifacts, that transitioned her idea into a reality.

Fossil discovered in southern Nevada