09/16/2026
Finding Elvis: A Clay Target History Quest
Viva Las Vegas!
It is almost impossible to say those words without trying to sound a little like Elvis. The 1964 film Viva Las Vegas, starring Elvis Presley and the stunning Ann-Margret, has always been one of my favorites. The music, the brilliant colors, the cars, and that wonderfully distinctive Las Vegas culture of the period made it one of my boyhood favorites.
And, of course, there was the s***t-shooting scene. At one point in the film, Elvis and Ann-Margret spend the day at what the movie identifies as the Thunderbird Gun Club, its name colorfully painted across the s***t high house. For most viewers, it is simply another entertaining scene in the movie.
For me, it became a quest.
Being something of a clay-target history detective, I wanted to answer a seemingly simple question: Where, exactly, did Elvis and Ann-Margret stand when that scene was filmed—and what is standing there today?
The First Clue: Bob Taylor’s Gun Club
A little research quickly establishes that the Thunderbird Gun Club shown in the movie was actually Bob Taylor’s Gun Club, located about 15 miles north of the Las Vegas Strip. Bob Taylor’s was one of several shooting clubs that flourished around Las Vegas during the city’s great postwar expansion.
But simply identifying Bob Taylor’s wasn’t enough. I wanted the actual field, and where they stood.
In 1954, Bob Taylor purchased approximately 80 acres and established his clay-target shooting club. The original operation included a pro shop, four trap fields, and a small establishment where Taylor himself became known for cooking hand-cut steaks. That modest beginning eventually evolved into Bob Taylor’s Ranch House Supper Club, the wonderfully preserved steakhouse that still operates today. Remarkably, the restaurant has survived while virtually everything associated with the old gun club around it has disappeared.
Clay Target Legends stopped there earlier this year for one of those famous steak dinners. Walking through the restaurant was almost like stepping back into another period of Las Vegas. Much of its mid-century character remains.
As I walked into the bar, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what the room must have been like when major shooting events were taking place outside—the country’s best trapshooters coming in after a day on the fields for steaks, drinks, and conversation, all in a smokey environment.
But I still hadn’t found Elvis.
Searching for a Vanished Gun Club
Bob Taylor’s Gun Club expanded considerably as clay-target shooting grew during the 1960s and 1970s. Eventually, another 20 trap fields were constructed west of the original club to accommodate major events and increasing numbers of shooters.
For my purposes, however, those later fields weren’t the important ones. I needed to concentrate on the original portion of the property that existed when Viva Las Vegaswas filmed. The obvious place to begin was with aerial photography.
That proved more difficult than expected. Modern aerial images were almost useless. Too much time had passed. Residential development, streets, cul-de-sacs, commercial buildings, and Highway 215 had transformed the landscape. Nearly every recognizable feature of the gun club had disappeared.
I next began searching archival aerial photographs, including imagery available through university collections in Las Vegas. Some older photographs showed the general area, but the resolution wasn’t sufficient to identify individual shooting fields with confidence.
So the search moved forward in time. I had a hunch.
Even if Bob Taylor had sold the property, the physical remains of the shooting fields probably didn’t disappear overnight. Concrete walkways, shooting stations, field patterns, roads, and other improvements might have remained visible for years after the club ceased operating.
I began examining later aerial imagery, working backward through the changing landscape. Eventually I reached imagery from the 1980s. I isolated the area surrounding the steakhouse, enlarged it, enhanced the details, and began working carefully through the pixels.
And then—there it was.
The ghost of Bob Taylor’s Gun Club.
The remnants of the old shooting grounds were still barely visible. The trap-field walkways could be identified, and farther west were unmistakable traces of the additional 20 trap fields Taylor had constructed during the 1970s. Later aerial photographs showed those remains gradually disappearing beneath development. By around 2000, essentially all visible evidence of the shooting club had been erased.
But I still had one question. Where was the s***t field?
Finding the Thunderbird Field
This is where the investigation finally produced the clue I had been looking for. Among the surviving field patterns, I could identify the old trap-field layouts from their walkways. But one field was different.
Only one of the original fields showed the distinctive evidence of a s***t layout overlay on a trap field.
That was the breakthrough. The movie showed Elvis and Ann-Margret shooting s***t. The aerial evidence showed only one s***t field within the original club complex.
But I wanted another independent check before I was satisfied. So I went back to Viva Las Vegas itself.
I began studying individual movie stills from the shooting sequence, looking beyond Elvis and Ann-Margret at the details in the background—the orientation of the high house, the shooting field, surrounding terrain, structures, and anything else that might correspond with what could be seen in the historical aerial photographs.
Those movie stills became another set of clues. By comparing what appeared behind the actors in the film with the surviving features visible in the aerial imagery, I was able to further confirm the location and orientation of the field. The evidence from the movie and the evidence from the aerial photographs pointed to the same place.
The pieces finally fit together. This is the field transformed for the movie into the colorful Thunderbird Gun Club.
I had found Elvis.
But What Is There Today?
Finding the field created one final challenge. I wanted to know exactly where that spot falls on the modern landscape where no evidence of a gun club remains.
Using the surviving Bob Taylor steakhouse as a control point, I began registering historical aerial photographs against modern aerial imagery. Roads, property lines, field remnants, and other surviving reference points helped refine the alignment.
Through a series of overlays, the location of the old s***t field could finally be transferred onto today’s development. Today, that exact spot is in an industrial type parking lot or service hard
In that spot, marked by the red star is where Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret filmed one of the most memorable s***t scenes of the 1960s. I suspect the people who work there today have absolutely no idea.
But there was one more surprise.
Despite decades of development and the almost complete disappearance of Bob Taylor’s shooting grounds, we actually found fragments of old clay targets at the site. They were only small target chips, but after all these years they provided something that aerial photographs, maps, and movie stills could not, a tangible remnant of the shooting that once took place there.
For a clay-target historian, finding those little pieces after more than half a century was about as fitting an ending to the search as I could have hoped for.
A Few More Clues Along the Way
The investigation turned up several other interesting details. Both Elvis and Ann-Margret used Re*****on Model 48 sh***uns during the sequence. Elvis used a 12 gauge, while Ann-Margret was shown with a .410.
Elvis appears to have been reasonably comfortable handling a sh***un. Ann-Margret’s target-breaking ability apparently received a little assistance from Bob Taylor himself, who reportedly stood outside the camera frame and broke targets when necessary after she called “pull.”
And then there was the name. Why call it the Thunderbird Gun Club if the scene was filmed at Bob Taylor’s?
The answer appears to have been movie-era promotion and branding. The Thunderbird name provided a natural connection with the famous Thunderbird Hotel and Casino. In those years, shooting and Las Vegas resort culture were closely connected, and several major casinos and hotels were associated with trap and s***t shooting, having their own gun clubs.
The brightly painted Thunderbird high house therefore created exactly the sort of colorful Las Vegas setting the filmmakers wanted.
Finding Elvis took time. What began as a simple question about a favorite childhood movie became a much longer historical investigation than I expected.
Old aerial photographs led to newer aerial photographs. Faint concrete walkways became clues. Movie stills provided another means of checking the evidence. The surviving steakhouse gave me a fixed reference point. Field patterns helped reconstruct the old club. Modern overlays allowed the movie location to be transferred onto today’s landscape.
And then, after virtually everything else had disappeared, we found those little pieces of broken clay targets still lying there—a physical reminder of what the property had once been.
There is otherwise almost nothing left on the ground to tell you what happened there.
No s***t houses. No shooting stations. No sign reading Thunderbird Gun Club. No indication that Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret once stood there with sh***uns while cameras rolled for Viva Las Vegas.
But now we know exactly where it happened.
The next time you pass that rather ordinary-looking building in north Las Vegas, you may be among the very few people who know that the King of Rock and Roll once stood on that ground shooting s***t with Ann-Margret.
And while you’re there, stop at Bob Taylor’s for a steak.
Sit for a while in that old dining room or bar, look around at a place that has survived while almost everything surrounding it has changed, and allow your imagination to wander back to a time when Las Vegas had casinos, showrooms, great entertainers, and s***t and trap clubs.
Steve Ellinger
