How Nevada became America's nuclear age ground zero

A model house is destroyed in seconds after an atomic bomb was detonated nearby, at the former Nevada Test Site.

(Credit: Nevada National Security Site)

MERCURY, Nev.--From the side that faced away from the blast, you might never have even have bothered to look at it. But walk around the other side of the concrete dome, and there's no question something extraordinary happened here.

Welcome to the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site. As part of Road Trip 2012, I've come to visit this 1,375-square mile expanse of harsh desert and even harsher mountains that begins about 75 miles north of Las Vegas. Here, from 1951 through 1992, a total of 928 nuclear weapons exploded, many of them sending instantly familiar giant mushroom clouds high into the skies above.

Boom! Nevada's nuclear legacy (pictures)

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