In Las Vegas, giant, elaborate signs flash and blink at casinos. Las Vegas Boulevard is lined with vintage signs that remind drivers and pedestrians of bygone businesses. The city is home to The Neon Museum.
But it wasn’t always this way. For roughly the first 20 years of the city’s existence, there was no neon.
Neon signs came to Las Vegas in the late 1920s, according to Emily Fellmer, senior collections manager at The Neon Museum.
The Overland Hotel at the present site of Circa likely put up the first neon sign, Fellmer said.
“Las Vegas business houses are taking the initiative in installing ornamental electric signs,” a 1928 Las Vegas Age editorial said. “El Portal has a handsome one with moving lights and now the Overland Hotel has installed one of the attractive Neon signs in red and blue. They help to make the town attractive.”
Neon signs were enough of a novelty that when the Las Vegas Club on Fremont Street erected one in 1930 it made the Review-Journal’s front page.
UNLV history professor Michael Green said early neon signs in Las Vegas weren’t elaborate, but eventually, neon became central to the city’s identity and a tool hotels and casinos used to attract customers.
Fellmer said the element neon was discovered in the late 19th century and not used with glass tubes until the early 20th century. Neon light debuted in Paris in 1910, and the first neon sign was installed in Paris in 1912, she said.
Neon signs came to the United States in early 1920s, she said, and the first one was in San Francisco.
According to Fellmer, the oldest signs in the museum’s collection are a late 1930s Green Shack restaurant sign and a motel sign from 1940.
Once the Hoover Dam was completed, Las Vegas was able to expand its electrical grid, she said, and that probably helped drive an expansion of neon signs.
It was in the late 1940s and early 50s that neon became central to the city’s identity, she said. As neon signs disappeared around the country and some environmental groups opposed them, Las Vegas doubled down and built taller, more elaborate signs.
“Neon stood out and stands out,” Green said. “Las Vegas stood out and stands out.”
Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.