Quirky Neon Sign Grave Yard

Traveling to a place and exploring quirky places that capture the essence of the place is something that I really enjoy doing.   Now Las Vegas is a pretty interesting and quirky place so there are quite a few attractions that boggle the mind. One place that is particularly interesting and rich in in Las Vegas History is the Neon Sign Boneyard.  This place is the final resting place for neon signs.  It’s a bit sad , funny and quirky all at the same time.

The story of how the graveyard came to be is a bit interesting as well.   For many decades most of the neon signs in Las Vegas have been produced by one company – Yesco.  This company specialized in providing the brightly lit Neon signs that sat above Casinos, Stores, Gas Stations, Motels and every other business that you could imagine.  Now Yesco’s business model was a bit different than other companies and instead of selling their signs to businesses, they would create the signs and than lease the signs to the businesses and get paid each month a fee.  When a business closed, went bankrupt or decided they no longer wanted the sign – the sign was given back to Yesco.  The old decrepit signs were a bit of  a nuisance for Yesco since they had to store them – which they did in an old dusty lot.  Tourist, locals and other began to peek in the lot taking pictures and well after awhile a museum was opened up where the signs could be viewed by all.  The museum charges $15 and you can only go walk the lot with a guided tour.  Since the signs are old when tourist have been allowed to go on their own they have broken lights and damaged the signs so the museum implemented a plan where you could not take backpacks and where you could not go unguided.

Well I had a chance to visit the Neon Sign Graveyard and I was quite happy with it.  There were some fantastic old signs that dated all the way back to the 1920’s for all types of businesses.  This truly is a quirky and interesting place you can go to in Las Vegas if you are looking for something a bit different and off the beaten path.

 http://www.frankiefoto.com/Travel/Las-Vegas-Neon-Boneyard/21325970_CfSZ7J