I’d always wanted to visit the Neon Boneyard. While Neon has been slowly replaced on the Las Vegas strip, classic signage like those that appeared at the Flamingo, the Sands, the Stardust and everywhere else are still emblems of the city for me.
YESCO, the Young Electric Sign Company—the manufacturer who created many of Vegas’s most iconic neon signs—had at one time started collecting old signage from the 1930s and beyond as hotels were demolished and as LED and LCD screens began replacing neon and incandescent bulb signs. Eventually, the company donated its collection to the Neon Museum (established in 1996), and the Allied Arts Council has been adding to the museum’s collection ever since.
When I was in town last week, I took a cab out to old Las Vegas to visit the museum and take their docent-lead one-hour tour—which begins in the lobby of the old clamshell shaped La Concha Motel.
If you’re interested in going, here some quick tips:
Finally, you can see how signs are constructed—and restored—on PBS’s Restoration Neon, if you’d like to learn more before visiting.
P.S. Shake Shack Las Vegas, and our Southwest road trip that ended in Vegas.
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