Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

History:

Quiz: Try your luck identifying these Las Vegas signs

Neon Museum Boneyard’s Holiday Lights

L.E. Baskow

The Sassy Sally’s sign is bathed in gold light Thursday, Dec. 4, 2014, in the Neon Museum Boneyard’s collection of more than 150 vintage neon signs illuminated with a holiday-inspired palette of lights.

Neon Museum Letters

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For those who appreciate Las Vegas’ history, the Neon Museum offers an A-to-Z trip into the community’s past.

The museum, at 770 Las Vegas Blvd. North, has become one of Sin City’s proudest attractions — a rare celebration of the heritage of a city that has reduced many of its historic buildings and signs to rubble. The collection includes signs ranging from the 1930s to 2015, and includes several that have been restored and are functional.

Just how well do you know the bygone signs of Las Vegas? Here’s a test, presented one letter at a time.

    • Hint: A is the second letter in this iconic resort’s name, and it’s also the second letter of the first and last names of its founder.

    • Answer: Caesars Palace

      At its opening in August of 1966, the hotel boasted a 14-story tower with just under 700 rooms. This letter ‘A’ makes up the original signage. Caesars Palace has since changed the color of its sign lettering from blue to red. Oh, and the founder? He was Jay Sarno, the Las Vegas icon who also founded Circus Circus.

    • Hint: The resort has been gone for 15 years, but its name can still be seen on dozens of road signs.

    • Answer: Desert Inn

      The Desert Inn was Howard Hughes' home from Thanksgiving Day 1966 to the day before Thanksgiving in 1970. From the late 1960s until the demolition of the Desert Inn in 2000, the resort and casino changed hands five times before Steve Wynn bought and closed it in 2000. After being used as the exterior of the fictitious Red Dragon Casino in the 2001 movie "Rush Hour 2," the Desert Inn was imploded later that year to make room for the Wynn Las Vegas.

    • Hint: Home of Siegel’s 1941 restaurant.

    • Answer: El Cortez

      El Cortez, built in 1941, was purchased in 1945 by mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky for $600,000. A staple of downtown Las Vegas, El Cortez was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.

    • Hint: Elvis flopped here.

    • Answer: The Frontier

      The Western-themed casino was the second resort in Las Vegas when it opened in 1942 as the Last Frontier. Known as the New Frontier by 1956, it was also the site of Elvis Presley’s first Vegas show that year, a total flop by all accounts. The New Frontier operated for over 50 years after Elvis’ first show, before being sold to Donald Trump in 2004. It was closed and imploded in 2007 for construction of the Trump Hotel Las Vegas.

    • Hint: One of the oldest casinos in Las Vegas, and now a Fremont Street staple.

    • Answer: Golden Nugget

      The Golden Nugget opened in downtown Las Vegas in 1946. In 1973, 31-year-old Steve Wynn made his first of many splashes in the Las Vegas casino industry when he became the majority shareholder and the youngest casino owner in Las Vegas.

    • Hint: The first fully desegregated hotel and casino in Las Vegas.

    • Answer: Moulin Rouge

      The Moulin Rouge, which opened in West Las Vegas in 1955, was built by white businessmen Alexander Bisno and Louis Rubin, who opened the club with the tagline of America’s first interracial hotel. Black performers who were mostly ostracized from casinos on the Strip no matter their level of celebrity, like Count Basie and Lena Horne, found a place to perform at Moulin Rouge. The Moulin Rouge, which closed a few months after opening, is part of National Register of Historic Places.

    • Hint: This casino and resort was the first high-rise on the Las Vegas Strip, where Liberace headlined the opening night.

    • Answer: Riviera

      The high-rise Riviera was revolutionary when it first opened in 1955, and it lasted 60 years before being closed in May 2015. It went bankrupt three months after opening and traded hands nearly a dozen times in its storied history. The Riviera was long thought to be deeply connected to the Chicago mob — casino profits were skimmed by management and sent to Chicago.

      It closed May 4. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority bought the 2,075-room resort for $182.5 million and plans to demolish it to make room for an expansion of the convention center.

    • Hint: This casino’s larger-than-life cowgirl sits looking out over the Fremont Street Experience, although her name has been changed.

    • Answer: Sassy Sally’s

      Answer: The Western-themed casino was opened in 1981 by strip club owner Herb Pastor. A woman named Sally also was the babysitter of Pastor’s children. Pastor acquired several other properties on Fremont in the late 1990s, and in 2000 changed the name of Sassy Sally’s to Mermaids Casino.

    • Hint: This hotel casino at one time boasted the third-largest bowling alley in the United States.

    • Answer: Showboat

      The Showboat set sail in 1954 on the north end of the Boulder Strip, but wasn’t profitable in its first five years of operation. So in 1959, a 106-lane bowling alley was added. Riding on the success of the Showboat’s nationally televised bowling competitions and the American Wrestling Association events hosted by the casino, parent company Showboat, Inc., opened three other locations in Atlantic City, Sydney, Australia, and Chicago. The Showboat was renamed Castaways under new ownership in 2000. The resort floundered under the boom of upscale resorts on the Las Vegas Strip, and was demolished in 2006.

    • Hint: Rumor has it that a Howard Hughes had the once hollow signage of this resort filled with concrete.

    • Answer: Silver Slipper Gambling Hall

      The Silver Slipper Gambling Hall, in business from 1950 to its demolition in 1988, earned its place in neon signage history with a rotating silver slipper that became one of the most famous in Las Vegas. Hughes purchased the Silver Slipper in 1968, during a three-year period he spent living in Las Vegas. The slipper fell over and was severely damaged in a storm in 1978. The owners modernized it before reinstalling it at the casino. But since the slipper is part of the Neon Museum, its management says they’re certain there’s no concrete in there.

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