The Carson City’s Children’s Museum has been picked as a nominee for Hampton Inn’s “All-American Landmark” program, where the hotel chain is donating money to renovate one roadside landmark in each of the 50 states. 2009 is Nevada’s year, so if you go to the Nevada page you can vote between the three landmarks that they’ve chosen and decide which of them will win the grand prize of being restored.
Nevada’s three nominees are the Carson City Children’s Museum, which is housed in the old Civic Auditorium building, the Nevada Northern Railway Museum in Ely, and Las Vegas’ Neon Museum, which is preserving the neon signs from all those hotels they keep tearing down.
Now while the Carson City loyalist wants to vote for the Children’s Museum to get the win, there’s a secret shameful part of me that want the neon museum to get it. Seems like all that neon fits into the concept of “Roadside Landmark” better than the Civic Auditorium does. And plus, the Auditorium has already been pretty well restored and kept up, where most of the neon museum’s collection is being kept in what’s called the “Boneyard”, an undisclosed location where old rusty pieces are kept until they can be fixed up and brought to life once more. If this program would help fix up pieces in the boneyard faster, I might say that’s a greater good for Nevada’s culture than putting a new coat of paint on the Children’s Museum.
The Railroad museum is a far better choice.