Dr. Lonnie Hammargren's Tiki

I visited Dr. Lonnie Hammergren this weekend at his Hammargren Home of Nevada History.

He gave me a tour of his various carvings including many PNG Tiki he brought back after filming a travelouge "Haley's Comet in Tahiti" and "Solar Eclipse in New Guinea" He was Flight Surgeon for the Apollo Space Program, Flight Surgeon and paratrooper with five Air Medals and a Bronze Star. He is former Lt. Governor of Nevada and he loves Tiki. If anyone has any info on any of his collection, please write him. He would love to know more about these carvings.

Benzart was happy to hear about this Tiki from the Tropicana Hotel and Casino he carved there in 1989.

This is a canoe from the Tropicana Hotel

Carvings from the Aku Aku in Las Vegas

Thanks for the tour Doc!

Please write him if you have any info for him.
Dr. Lonnie Hammargren

[email protected]

http://www.nevadaday.org

Thanks alot for the post!! Great pictures and this gentleman sounds like a very interesting person.
Some historic and very cool pieces in there!!
Lot's of old stuff and collectibles everywhere. I love seeing places like this!
Stuff on top of stuff!! Also, love the original German Helmet lamp shade!!

If any one does know more about this stuff or anything, it would be interesting to post it here as well.
Mahalo, TabooDan

Very nice, if haphazardly arranged, collection. And very cool that you located a couple of Ben's lost carvings! You didn't happen to spot any of his giant redwood tikis hiding under a table or something?

On 2009-02-25 08:52, GatorRob wrote:
Very nice, if haphazardly arranged, collection. And very cool that you located a couple of Ben's lost carvings! You didn't happen to spot any of his giant redwood tikis hiding under a table or something?

The Tiki you are referring to were taken from the Flamingo Hotel and are somewhere in So Cal. Benzart heard from a guy who knew the guy who had two or three of the big redwood tiki. There is a thread on the Tropicana carving post about it
Dr. Hammargren does have a 72 foot canoe he brought back from a trip. Probably more Tiki there, I only saw about half of his place this time.

This was a piece that was inside the Smithsonian to honor the US and Soviet space link up in 1975. When the USSR collapsed some of the artists showed up at the Smithsonian and claimed their work. This was one of the pieces that was auctioned off.

The "Aku Aku" tikis actually were used in the African number of the "Enter The Night" show at the Stardust, and never were part of the Aku Aku. They are made of fiberglass, by the way, and quite gigantic. You can see them over the back wall at his place when you drive by.

Here's the link to the original post of these at the auction (scroll down)

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=21552&forum=1&hilite=calling%20all%20vegas%20tiki