The Neon Museum in Las Vegas

 I went to the coolest place in Vegas. At least I thought it was. It was full of old neon signs from the strip and surrounding areas. The place even included one from Utah. It was a museum, outdoors, in a "boneyard". The signs all had their own history and the tour guide told us about neon, how it was used in the sign process, the art, and the meaning behind many of the signs.





They had a very exciting collection of signs and detailed information about the casinos and motels that used the signs. We learned about the history of Binions, and how it was the first casino in Las Vegas to have carpet. It was also the first casino to ban allowing horses into it. The name: Horseshoe Casino.

Another interesting thing we discovered was Las Vegas isn't only famous for it's wedding, it is also famous for divorce. Nevada has very relaxed rules on divorce, so "Divorce resorts" were set up for people to live at and claim residency at for several weeks in order to get a divorce faster. This is still popular.



 

Some of the signs were illuminated and others were not. It would be extremely expensive to have all the signs on every night. The museum in non profit and the land for the bone yard is rented from the city of LasVegas for $1 a year in order to keep it open.  The building is the rebuilt La Concha Inn and has some pretty exciting architecture.




One of the newer pieces they acquired was the
sign from the Sahara which closed not to long ago. The sign is in really good shape and it was donated to them. The signs they receive are donated to them, but this is still really expensive. The signs cost a lot of money to create, like millions of dollars, they are also extremely heavy and they take a lot of labor to be moved and reset in the bone yard. When they are very old they contain a lot of rust and broken glass from the bulbs. This can be hazardous in the moving process.

Some signs, like this duck, cost a lot of money. This duck was made for a car dealership and cost them like two million dollars. Obviously they went bankrupt. I think that happens a lot in Vegas, go big or go home.





Thank you to my sister in law Julie for the idea to visit this museum! It was very interesting!