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Las Vegas history meets Instagram opportunity

THE NEON MUSEUM

USA TODAY SPECIAL EDITION

THE NEON MUSEUM

DAWN GILBERTSON/USA TODAY By Dawn Gilbertson and Jefferson Graham

OU COULD

YBREEZE THROUGH the outdoor Neon Museum (neonmuseum.org) in less than 30 minutes, snapping a few photos of vintage Vegas signs before returning to the action on nearby Fremont Street or the Las Vegas Strip.

But then you wouldn’t learn about the city’s first racially integrated hotel casino (the short-lived Moulin Rouge) or why the Golden Nugget casino featured the year 1905 on its glittery facade instead of 1946, the year it opened. The Las Vegas history lesson comes only with a guided tour of the downtown museum, a boneyard filled with 250 neon signs from Vegas’ past, 17 of them restored and still glowing.

Along with the hot-pink sign from the defunct Liberace Museum and giant nugget from the Golden Nugget casino, visitors will find artifacts from closed or renovated casinos and hotels. The giant skull from Treasure Island’s family-friendly pirate show days is there, and so is the genie’s lamp from Aladdin Hotel and Casino. There are signs from roadside motels and a mini-mart that beckoned hungover travelers headed back to California with free aspirin and “tender sympathy.”

In addition to Las Vegas trivia, the guide on our onehour night tour taught us the chemistry of neon and about the notorious gambler, casino owner and criminal Benny Binion of Binion’s Horseshoe, who Vegas visitors have to thank for replacing sawdust with carpeting on casino floors.

Our guide also gave us a tip for dating signs: Those built before 1970 have spikes or ladders, on which workers used to climb eight to 10 stories to change the bulbs.

USA TODAY SPECIAL EDITION