The Nevada Test Site is a United States Department of Energy reservation located in Nevada, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, although with Las Vegas' rate of growth its probably now closer than 65 miles, it was the site of extensive above ground nuclear testing. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving Grounds, the site was established on 11 January 1951, for the testing of nuclear devices. Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flat on 27 January 1951. Many of the iconic images of the nuclear era come from NTS.
On May 19, 1953, the US detonated the 32-kiloton atomic bomb (nicknamed "Harry") at the Nevada Test Site. The bomb later gained the name "Dirty Harry" because of the tremendous amount of off-site fallout generated by the bomb. Winds carried fallout 135 miles to St. George Utah, where residents reported "an oddly metallic sort of taste in the air."
In 1956 The Conqueror, a film directed by Dick Powell, produced by Howard Hughes, starring John Wayne, featuring Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and Pedro Armendáriz was filmed near St. George, Utah. The cast and crew spent many weeks on location, Hughes later shipped 60 tons of dirt back to Hollywood to maintain continuity for studio re-shoots. There are publicity photographs of Wayne holding a Geiger counter on set.
Dick Powell died of cancer in January 1963. Pedro Armendáriz was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 1960 and committed suicide in 1963 after he learned it was terminal. Hayward, Wayne, and Moorehead all died of cancer in the mid to late 1970s. Cast member actor John Hoyt died of lung cancer in 1991. The cast and crew totaled 220 people. By 1981, 91 of them had developed some form of cancer and 46 had died of the disease.
The light shows probably arent the only reason Las Vegas glows in the dark.
