Las Vegas Wasn't Always a Desert: From Wet Valley to Neon Oasis

Climate Change Over Millennia

Las Vegas Valley (Mojave Desert) was once a lush, spring-fed marshland.

Paleo-History

• Pleistocene (Ice Age): Cooler, wetter. Lake Mojave, springs, grasslands. Mammoths, camels, giant sloths. Paleo-Indians hunted here.
• Early Holocene (~10,000 BP): Warming → lakes shrank, springs persisted. Archaic cultures thrived.
• Mid-Holocene (~5,000 BP): Aridification accelerated. Springs became critical oases. Patayan, Ancestral Puebloan trade routes.
• 1829: Antonio Armijo names "Las Vegas" (The Meadows) for artesian springs + grass.
• 1905: Railroad town founded; groundwater pumping begins.
• 20th Century: Aquifer overdraft → land subsidence (2+ m), springs dry up. Colorado River (Lake Mead) now supplies 90%.

Today

Desert metro (2.3M). Water scarcity defines future. The "meadows" are golf courses, fountains, and memory—fed by a river 30 miles away.