Neon Museum illuminates Las Vegas history through iconic signs and firsts

A sign from the long-closed Moulin Rouge, the first integrated hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

LAS VEGAS – From the first business to feature air conditioning to the first casino to hire female blackjack dealers, these signs of the times tell the story of Las Vegas.

The Neon Museum, open since 2012, isn’t a traditional history museum, but it is a colorful one, with hundreds of iconic Las Vegas signs on display, many of them refurbished and illuminated in all their glitzy glory.

About 30 signs at the Neon Museum light up, including this Wedding Information sign.

Among the milestones represented through signs:

The Moulin Rouge, the first Las Vegas hotel-casino to integrate, in May 1955, in what was still a very segregated city.
The El Cortez, still operating today, the only active casino on the National Register of Historic Places.
And Binion’s Horseshoe, the first casino to provide complimentary drinks and chairs in front of its slot machines — “so you could sit down while you lost all that money,” joked guide Trinity Rodriguez.

The Neon Museum's boneyard park features hundreds of historic signs on display.

The museum counts about 1,000 signs in its full collection, many donated over the decades as businesses closed or updated their branding.

About 30 have been refurbished and are able to be illuminated, which makes dusk a great time to visit.

Part of the collection, too, is displayed throughout the city, at downtown locations along Las Vegas Boulevard, Fremont Street and elsewhere.

The biggest assortment, however, is on display in the museum’s Neon Boneyard, a 2-acre outdoor gallery that takes its name from an industry term for a place where retired signs are sent and picked for parts.

There’s one from the El Portal Theatre, the first Las Vegas business to feature air-conditioning, which was described as “manufactured weather” on its 1960s-era sign.

And another from the Sahara Hotel, where the Beatles stayed during their first North American tour in 1964. Due to massive crowds of fans, the band was largely confined to their rooms and hotel management brought slot machines to their suite – the only time such an accommodation was made, according to Rodriguez.

One of the newer signs at the Neon Museum celebrates Las Vegas hosting the Super Bowl in 2024.

The oldest sign in the collection is from the Green Shack, which operated from 1930 to 1999, and is considered the longest-running restaurant in Las Vegas history. Its sign advertises cocktails, steak and fried chicken — “You don’t need much else in Las Vegas,” said Rodriguez.

A sign from the Sahara Hotel, a Las Vegas institution.

And the biggest? The towering guitar from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, closed since 2020, which measures 82 feet tall by 25 feet wide.

(Actually, the largest is from the long-gone Stardust Hotel, but it’s so big that only a portion can be displayed, according to Rodriguez.)

Signs from the Stardust, the Hard Rock and other iconic Las Vegas real estate on display at the Neon Museum.

Other signs highlight important social and labor history. The Silver Nugget became the first casino in the city to hire female blackjack dealers in 1964. The Frontier Hotel and Casino was the site of one of the longest labor strikes in U.S. history, lasting from 1991 to 1998

There’s also one from the Desert Inn, where wealthy recluse Howard Hughes famously holed up for four years in the late 1960s. “What was he doing?” asked Rodriguez. “He was buying up the city of Las Vegas.”

Many of the properties he ended up purchasing – including the Sands and the Frontier – are represented here as well.

If you go: The Neon Museum, Las Vegas

Where: The museum, at 770 Las Vegas Blvd. N, is about a half-mile north of downtown.

When: Hours vary, but the museum is typically open from 3 p.m. until 10 or 11 p.m.

Admission: $25 during the day and $35 at night; tours are extra.