Biggest Neon sign for Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas
In a city that likes to blow up its history, the museum preserves its most brilliant parts.
BETTY WILLIS SHOULD’VE GONE FOR THE CASH. In 1959, the pioneering female commercial artist designed what is probably the most famous—and one of the longest lasting—neon symbols in the world. In 1952 she was employed by Western Company when a salesman named Todd Rogich, seeing welcome signs proliferate in other locales, approached her about designing a fitting emblem for the city. He suggested Las Vegas’ reflect its flashy veneer by utilizing neon lighting: one of the city’s most familiar, yet somehow still novel, features.
Now recognized the world over, Willis’s 25-foot Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign sits on the southern tip of the Strip—technically in unincorporated Clark County—flanked by palm trees and Elvis impersonators, roadside Americana beckoning to motorists with its promise of possibility. Balancing on two poles, an exaggerated Googie-style diamond is bordered with flashing incandescent bulbs.
Red letters spell out “WELCOME” against silver dollar coins rimmed in white neon, a nod to both the Silver State and the gamblers attracted to it. And on the top sits a red metal starburst outlined in brilliant yellow. Willis told the New York Times before her death in 2018, “I added a Disney star for happiness.” In 2008 the city constructed a parking lot for the sole purpose of encouraging pedestrians to line up for a perfect (and free) photo op. The sign cemented Willis’s legacy, thanks to its alluring glow. www.mgoled.com
Neon captivated from its very inception. In 1898, British scientists William Ramsay and his assistant Morris Travers discovered the new element, which emitted a magical crimson glow when electrically stimulated. To say they were in awe of the element’s power would be an understatement: of the discovery Travers wrote, “the blaze of crimson light from the tube told its own story and was a sight to dwell upon and never forget.”
The first neon signs were unveiled in Paris in 1910, and it didn’t take long for the illuminated phenomena to make its way to the States, rising in tandem with the country’s romance with automobiles. It’s said the United States’ first neon sign was erected in 1923 in Los Angeles. It sat atop a hotel reading “Packard” in four-foot-high red and blue lettering, and drew onlookers from far and wide, creating traffic jams with its eminence.
But it was Vegas that fully understood—and utilized—neon’s true potential. In the early 1930s, after the legalization of gambling brought an influx of tourists and the construction of the Hoover Dam an abundance of electricity, Las Vegas transformed from a sleepy frontier town to one dripping with gaseous, colorful glitz. The downtown thoroughfare of Fremont Street earned the nickname of Glitter Gulch in the 1940s, with everything from pharmacies to casinos lit up in lights.
Rogich eventually sold the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign to Clark County officials for $4,000, and as the story goes, Willis declined to copyright the design, saying it was her gift to her beloved city. But she failed to remember that her city was built on capitalism—and opportunity. Years later, after seeing the sign replicated everywhere from snow globes to boxer shorts to potato chips, she acknowledged, “I should make a buck out of it. Everybody else is.”
Today, you can see the Willis’s sign whenever the mood strikes. In 2013, solar panels were attached, ensuring the symbol’s longevity and making it much more energy-efficient (not quite in line with the rest of Vegas, but a hope for the future). Listed in the State Register of Historic Places, it’s an unusually enduring marquee in a city whose M.O. is to repeatedly pave over its past.
Many of Vegas’ other once-iconic neon signs are forever gone, smashed into shimmering shards and committed only to memories of the city’s mid-century opulence. But if catching sight of Willis’ glowing contribution sparks an interest in the element’s reaches, you can always get your fix at the Neon Museum.
A ticket to an illuminating history
In the early 1990s, Las Vegas began making room for new hotels the best way they knew how: by imploding the old ones in splashy, theatrical affairs. Sometimes they had accompanying fireworks, one time they had pirates. The Dunes was the first to meet this fate back in 1993 (making way for the Bellagio), followed by the Landmark in 1995, a space needle-like structure whose crumbling implosion was captured in the Tim Burton film Mars Attacks. Then, like dominoes, the Sands was eliminated in November of 1996, and the Hacienda went a month later. The latter’s booming demise was showcased as part of a televised New Year’s Eve extravaganza that year.
In 2007 came two more major demolitions: New Frontier, a western-themed Howard Hughes joint where both Sigfried & Roy and Elvis made their Vegas debuts. And the Stardust Casino, inspired by a mid-century affinity for space exploration, frequented by the likes of Sinatra, and once the domain of kingpin and bookie Lefty Rosenthal, AKA the inspiration behind the Hollywood blockbuster Casino.
The artists who labored over the neon signage marking these disappearing artifacts despaired before resolving to save their works. Rescuing the jagged and otherworldly—not to mention massive—Stardust sign was an especially significant feat: The letters range from 14 to 18 feet in height and contain over 1,100 light bulbs, 975 in the S alone. Imposing in stature, it probably can’t be seen from space, but it sure gives the impression it could.
Today, however, it can be seen in the Neon Museum. Established in 1996 as a nonprofit to collect, preserve, and exhibit discarded neon signs, the museum began with a donation by the Young Electric Sign Company and was initially only let in visitors by appointment. In 2012, the campus’ “boneyard”—the space where items no longer in use are stored—opened to the public.
Approximately 250 signs populate the museum, some dating back to the 1930s, a number always growing as more are donated (the only way they acquire signs). Around two dozen of those are electrified, providing viewers with a dazzling taste of old Las Vegas. And in true Vegas fashion, you can even have your wedding there, surrounded by radiance.
