Dr. Lonnie Hammargren Visits GilleysMuseum.com
Today, Tuesday December 4, 2012, GilleysMuseum.com had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Lonnie Hammargren for a private tour of our collection.
For those of you who aren’t into Nevada and Las Vegas history, Dr. Hammargren has a long and distinguished career in medicine, politics and furthering the protection of the history of Las Vegas, among other things.
He’s a past Lt. Governor of Nevada (1995-1999), a distinguished neurosurgeon, and owner of Castillo del Sol, a museum of important Las Vegas and Casino memorabilia.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Hammargren and his wife Sandy at his home about a month ago. Following a conversation about his collection and mine we finally found some time in his very busy schedule for him to come see the GilleysMuseum.com collection. We spent about an hour together, looking at memorabilia and telling stories.
It turns out that back in the day Lonnie (Dr. Hammargren) worked in Houston, Texas for NASA as a flight surgeon and had the opportunity to visit the original Gilley’s, so the collection brought back lots of fond memories. He loved the collection.
He was also a regular visitor at the old Frontier Hotel and Casino so he loved seeing all the old signs, casino cash cart, etc.
Here’s a picture of Dr. Lonnie Hammargren holding a Gilley’s vinyl seat cushion.
Dr. Lonnie Hammargren at GilleysMuseum.com on December 4, 2012.
He’s a great guy with enough stories to keep you enthralled for a very long time. I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with him and look forward to doing it again. Maybe next Sunday when he plays accordian in a band? Who knows. Whatever it is, I’m sure it will be fun.
Thanks for coming, Lonnie.
Bubba
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