Last week I took a quick trip to Las Vegas and took time out to visit the Neon Museum and Boneyard. To say that I found it delightful would not only be accurate, but it would be a really bad pun. The Neon Museum is a relatively new attraction in Sin City. Tours of the Boneyard have been available for years, but they were by appointment only. Only the insiders knew about the tours. The museum finally was able to get a visitor's center up and going and now offer official tours every day.
The main exhibits are actually found all over Vegas, particularly in the old Downtown area. There, you can find several refurbished signs, lit up every night (as many of the Fremont Street residents are). Here are a few examples I borrowed from Yelp:
However, the boneyard tour has very few operating signs. Here, they store the remnants of Vegas's past, including signs waiting for a chance to be revived. Several older signs are beyond repair, such as the one for the Desert Rose. However, the recently demolished Stardust sign is here, in eight pieces, awaiting the funds to be rescued. Here are a few pictures I took with my cell-phone... I forgot to take my camera!
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| Here's the entrance to the Boneyard. Nice touch, for a Neon Boneyard to have a neon sign... |
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| The Moulin Rouge was the first racially integrated casino / hotel in Vegas. It opened in 1955. Big name entertainers like Sammy Davis could entertain in the Strip hotels, but were not allowed to stay there. Most ended up at the Moulin Rouge. Despite its popularity, it was only open for 5 months, closing due to mismanagement. However, it made its mark on Vegas - the agreement to desegregate all Vegas casinos was signed at the Moulin Rouge. |
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| The Sassy Sally's sign. To its left, barely visible, is a small blue sign that used to stand at a gas station along the Strip. It proclaimed, "Free aspirin and tender sympathy." In the years the sign was up the station gave away thousands f aspirin tablets. It used to be one of my favorite Vegas landmarks - nice to see it was saved! |
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| Here is the original sign in its heyday. As you can see, they also gave away Green Chip Stamps. Should we get a rowboat or a sewing machine with our stamps? Maybe one of you will get that reference. Probably my brother Robbi. |
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| The Tropicana's old sign, with the Silver Slipper in the back. |
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| Ah, the Stardust. The Stardust's neon sign was once the largest neon sign ever built. |
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| This giant pirate skull was once part of the Treasure Island sign. Once Treasure Island decided to de-emphasize the pirate theme, these came down. Our tour guide told us to look up the Neon Museum on Google Earth when we got home. She said you would see piles of junk and a giant pirate head staring back at you.. Naturally, I did and saved the image below. She was right! |
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| Avast, me hearties! Welcome to ye boneyard! |
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| The Sahara's sign, still in great condition. In 1964, the Beatles played the Sahara and stayed in the hotel. |
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| Boneyard... the Final Frontier... |
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| I'll end with this picture of the Silver Slipper, and this great story: The Silver Slipper casino was located across the street from the Desert Inn, where Howard Hughes had taken up residency. This giant slipper lit up and rotated on top of the Silver Slipper's sign, and Howard watched it from his window every night. Eventually, he became convinced that the shoe contained a camera and was monitoring his every move. So, Howard sent one of his minions across the street to kindly ask the owners of the Slipper to remove the shoe from their sign. When they refused, Howard immediately bought the casino and took it down himself. |
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