Floyd Lamb Park Description
In a city filled with palms and desert landscape, the grass lawn,
pond and cottonwood tree-filled Floyd Lamb Park might look a little out
of place in the Mojave metropolis of Las Vegas.
However, this oasis has been popular for literally thousands of years.
Today,
the expansive park has four stocked ponds, picnic areas, barbecues,
scenic paths and volleyball and horseshoe facilities on 2,040 acres in
northwest Las Vegas. Visitors will come face to face with beautiful
peacocks, ducks and geese. Those with a Nevada fishing license can fish
in any of the park's ponds but are limited to three fish per person.
Visitors
can also explore Tule Springs Ranch, one of the best examples of
Pleistocene paleontologic sites in western North America. Tule Springs
was visited by large prehistoric mammals in an era when the southern
Nevada area was much cooler and wetter. Fossil remains of extinct
mammoths, bison, horses, camels, giant sloths and other animals have
been found in Tule Springs.
Later Tule Springs served as a
watering hole for Indians and prospectors who traveled across Nevada. In
1916, John Herbert (Bert) Nay was the first non-Indian to file for
water rights. As he acquired more property at Tule Springs, he built a
blacksmith shop and a storage room.
Nay sold his interest in the
farm in 1928 when he moved to California. The property remained vacant
until prospector Jacob Goumond purchased the land to be a private
retreat for his friends. He took advantage of Nevada's changing divorce
laws and set up a dude ranch for prospective divorcees. The guests would
wait out the six-week residency requirement to file papers. This was
the shortest waiting period in the country. The ranch became a resort
area and was glamorized by divorce-minded movie stars.
Tule
Springs also was a self-supporting ranch. One hundred acres was set
aside for alfalfa and cattle; other animals were raised and sold, as
well as several vegetable varieties. Its many functional wooded
buildings still exist.
Goumond's granddaughter inherited the ranch
when he died in 1954. She sold it to a group of businessmen who formed
the Tule Springs Investment Company. They leased out the ranch until the
city of Las Vegas bought it in 1964. It was converted into a city park
and renamed in honor of state Sen. Floyd Lamb.
Floyd Lamb is a pleasant and pretty place to throw out a picnic blanket or reel in a rainbow trout.
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