History buff does double duty sharing Las Vegas’ past

It’s fair to say Ashley Canelon knows more about Las Vegas history than most other recent transplants — and possibly natives.

Canelon works up to 70 hours a week, sharing her time between the Mob Museum, where she works full time giving tours and doing outreach, and the Neon Museum, where she works work part time guiding tours.

“Sometimes I see the same tourists at both places,” Canelon said, adding that it often makes for either a chuckle or confusion when those in her separate tours recognize her.

Canelon, 32, moved from southern Georgia to Las Vegas about two years ago, leaving her 13-year career in graphic design to indulge her passion for history and culture. (Though Canelon said she still takes some freelance graphic design gigs here and there.)

“I wanted to do something new. I had been eyeballing the West for a while. Not necessarily Las Vegas, but when I started looking into Vegas more and learning the history, I knew I wanted to come work in that.”

She said history buffs “scoff” at her sometimes when they learn she moved from the Old South, an area with very rich history, for Las Vegas’ history.

“But I like the spirit (of Las Vegas) and the fact that we started as a railroad town, and people populated this railroad town because they wanted to. Because they wanted to start over, and they wanted something new and different. And we’ve never stopped doing that,” she said.

Canelon said she is constantly seeking out additional information to add to her knowledge of Las Vegas history by reading, attending panel discussions, watching documentaries, and conducting interviews.

“Any time I come across somebody on a tour that knows something that I don’t know, I’m grilling them,” she said.

She also joked that she tries to disguise her research gathering as fun adventure days for her 12-year-old son.

“Usually he’s on board,” she said. “There’s been a few times though — I remember one time in particular, I went to take him to the Old Mormon Fort here and I had painted it as a day out … and he was like, ‘Mom, this is a history place, I don’t want to learn history today.’”

Learning about Las Vegas has turned out to be an exercise in critical thinking, as “there are so many myths out there that aren’t true, or they’re only half true,” she said.

Early on she said she believed that Bugsy Siegel — the famous mobster who helped develop the Flamingo in the ‘40s — “started” Las Vegas.

“That’s really embarrassing to say because that is my biggest pet peeve now,” she said.

Her favorite piece of Las Vegas history is the African-American experience in Southern Nevada.

“It’s undertold, and also we’ve always had this reputation as being a place that you can come from anywhere and be anybody and live any fantasy you want. But the reality is, for a good amount of time that was only afforded to a certain type of person,” Canelon said.

She added that she also values that history because it’s still panning out.

“The one thing we we tell people about it (local black history) here at the Neon Museum is about the Moulin Rouge, because we have the sign. I always tell people that this is not the only part of that history. This is not the end of that history. It’s a catalyst to talk about something that we still need to talk about.”

Looking into the future, she said she intends to always be part of the museum scene in some capacity.

Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @JournalistNikki on Twitter.