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BOULDER CLUB EXTERIOR SIGNS Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

designer unknown

1946

Fremont Street, named in honor of the Ameri- can politician and explorer John Charles Fre- mont (1813–1890), is in the heart of downtown Las Vegas’s casino corridor and dates back to as early as 1905 when the city was founded. It was the first paved street in Las Vegas and was nick- named “Glitter Gulch” in the early 1950s due to an abundance of neon (see page 60) signs for casinos such as Binion’s Horseshoe, Eldorado Club, Fremont Hotel and Casino, Golden Gate Hotel and Casino, Golden Nugget, the Mint, and

the Pioneer Club. It is the second most famous street in Las Vegas after the Las Vegas strip.

The Boulder Club, one of the earliest gam- bling establishments on Fremont Street, opened in 1929 and was the first to build and install a “spectacular” sign with animated elements on its building exterior in 1946.

The Golden Nugget, originally known as the Golden Nugget Gambling Hall, was the largest and most luxurious casinos located on Fremont Street in downtown Las Vegas at the time of its

THE POS

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ORLD 1950–2000

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VEGAS VIC AND PIONEER CLUB EXTERIOR SIGN

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Young Electric Sign Company (est. 1920), Designers Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

GOLDEN NUGGET CASINO EXTERIOR SIGNS Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Young Electric Sign Company (est. 1920), Designers Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

1951

1946

that ran every fifteen minutes, was a departure at the time, since most signs introduced in the city during this era were letterform based, not figurative or character based. Perhaps the most recognized electronic sign in Las Vegas, Vegas Vic was designed and built by Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO) in 1951, and it became the unofficial greeter to Las Vegas visitors.

YESCO was founded in 1920 by Thomas Young (1895–1971), a sign painter who left England in the early 1900s with his family and immigrated to Ogden, Utah. He started a sign shop that specialized in coffin plates, gold leaf window lettering, lighted signs, and painted advertisements. As the science and technology of sign lighting and manufacturing evolved, so

did YESCO. The company erected the first neon sign in Las Vegas for the Boulder Club in 1947.

When the Stardust Hotel and Casino opened in 1958, it was located on 63 acres (25 ha) along the Las Vegas Strip and had the larg- est casino, the largest swimming pool, and was deemed the largest hotel in the Las Vegas area.

Its exterior neon signs were equal to its billing. The Stardust building sign provided the public with a panoramic graphic view of the so- lar system. A 16-foot- (4.9 m) diameter acrylic representation of the Earth was at its center with rays of neon and incandescent lights emanating from behind in all directions. Three- dimensional acrylic planets orbited among a galactic cloud of neon stars. Across this starlit

cloud was nestled a jagged composition of illuminated letterforms spelling out “Stardust.” The sign was composed of 7,100 feet (2,200 m) of neon tubing with approximately 11,000 incandescent lightbulbs along its 216-foot- (66 m) long front fascia, with 975 incandescent lightbulbs contained in the “S” alone. At night, the neon-illuminated sign was reportedly visible from 60 miles (97 km).

Its freestanding roadside sign was com- posed of a circle constraining an amorphous cloud of cosmic dust encircled by an orbit ring of dancing stars. At night, incorporating neon and incandescent lamps in the animation se-

STARDUST RESORT AND CASINO EXTERIOR SIGNS

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Young Electric Sign Company (est. 1920), Designers Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

WELCOME TO FABULOUS LAS VEGAS ROADSIDE SIGN

Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

Betty Willis (b. 1924), Designer Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

1958

1959

quence, light fell from the stars, sprinkling from the top of the 188-foot- (57 m) tall sign down over the Stardust name.

The iconic Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada sign is in the center median of the Las Vegas Strip. This landmark sign, built in 1959, stands 25 feet high (7.6 m) and was designed by Betty Willis (b. 1924), a native Las Vegas graphic designer, who at the time worked for Western Neon Sign Company (est. 1936), a local sign manufacturer.

It is composed of a luminescent diamond panel bordered with flashing and chasing yellow incandescent lights around its perim- eter. Across its top are seven circles backed with graphic representations of silver dollars, outlined in white neon, and each containing a bold, red, sans-serif letter collectively forming the word “Welcome.” An eight-pointed, red star outlined in yellow neon crowns the sign.

The sign’s translucent white panel displays “to Fabulous” in blue cursive letterforms with

“Las Vegas” in red sans-serif capital letterforms on the next line and “Nevada” in blue sans-serif capital letterforms directly below. On the back it says, “Drive Carefully” and “Come Back Soon.”

The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada sign is characteristic of the “Googie” architecture movement that originated in southern California in the late 1940s through to the mid-1960s. It was a design movement influenced

by car culture and the atomic age and charac- terized by the use of futuristic, space-age forms that communicated motion.

In 2009, the sign was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

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ORLD 1950–2000

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MORRIS LAPIDUS AND