An hour outside of Las Vegas is a 1,375-mile plot of desert where the U.S. once tested out its arsenal of nuclear weapons, preparing for the seemingly inevitable climax to decades of Cold War tensions.

The government opened the Nevada Test Site (now called the Nevada National Security Site) in 1951, long before the nearby desert town was transformed into the Times Square of the west.

When the flow of visitors to Las Vegas increased, tourists could sip their drinks while watching mushroom clouds burst in the distant skyline. Before the site closed in 1992, the government ran nearly 1,000 nuclear tests there, the majority of which were underground.