Lighting Up Las Vegas: YESCO Marks a Glittering Century
Images courtesy of LVCVA’s Las Vegas News Bureau Archive.
By Kelli Luchs and Emily Fellmer
Las Vegas and neon are synonymous with each other. When you think of Las Vegas, you think of its dazzling skyline and brilliant lights. Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO) has played a significant role in creating Las Vegas’ shining reputation. The company has created many signs that have defined the look and feel of Las Vegas. From its early use of neon on Fremont Street in the 1930s, to the Strip “spectaculars” of the 1950s and 1960s, to the cutting-edge technologies of today, YESCO has helped mold the image of Las Vegas. Its iconic signs have come to be recognized as works of art, and their significance transcends their function as mere advertisements. In celebration of YESCO’s 102nd anniversary, this joint exhibition, Lighting Up Las Vegas: YESCO Marks a Glittering Century, by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s (LVCVA) Las Vegas News Bureau Archive and The Neon Museum examines the history and impact of YESCO in Las Vegas. The exhibit follows the intertwined stories of the company, the city, the technology, and the men and women who made it all possible.
The Neon Museum has worked with YESCO since the Museum’s founding in 1996, but their effort to help save neon signs in Las Vegas expands far beyond that. YESCO had a boneyard of its own, where out of use signs were kept and sometimes reused or scrounged for parts. Many of these signs made their way to The Neon Museum in the early 2000s. The curation of The Neon Museum’s Boneyard was in part inspired by YESCO’s boneyard. YESCO has helped restore many of the signs that are illuminated in the Neon Museum’s Boneyard including the La Concha Motel sign, the Flame restaurant sign, and the Jerry’s Nugget sign. The largest restoration project that the Museum and YESCO undertook was for the 82-foot tall Hard Rock Café guitar.
The LVCVA’s Las Vegas News Bureau Archive documents the history of Las Vegas and southern Nevada from 1947 to the present. With more than 7 million images, 11,000 moving images (film and video), and 1,400 linear feet of manuscripts and artifacts, the archive is estimated to be the largest and most comprehensive post World War II collection of southern Nevada imagery in the world. The collection once served the marketing efforts of the Chamber of Commerce, but in 1992, it became part of the LVCVA. The Las Vegas News Bureau Archive teamed up with the Neon Museum to tell the story of YESCO and to examine its importance to the growth of the city.
Founded in 1996, The Neon Museum is a non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization dedicated to collecting, preserving, studying, and exhibiting iconic Las Vegas signs for educational, historic, arts, and cultural enrichment. The Neon Museum campus includes the outdoor exhibition space known as the Neon Boneyard, a visitors’ center housed inside the former La Concha Motel lobby and the Neon Boneyard North Gallery which houses additional rescued signs and is available for weddings, special events, photo shoots, and educational programs.
Lighting Up Las Vegas: YESCO Marks a Glittering Century is on display at the Nevada Humanities Program Gallery through March 31, 2022, and always viewable online. A reception and exhibition discussion about Lighting Up Las Vegas will take place at Stinko’s in Las Vegas on March 9, 2022, at 5 – 8 pm PST. The exhibition discussion will be livestreamed on Facebook Live at 6 pm PST. Learn more and register here.
Kelli Luchs, the Archivist for the Las Vegas News Bureau Archive, a division of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) oversees the archival collection including over 7 million images, 11,000 moving images (film and video), and 1,400 linear feet of manuscripts. Luchs received a B.A. in History from Grand Valley State University and her M.A. in Public History from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She has been working with archives in Las Vegas for the past 15 years.
Emily Fellmer, the Collections Manager at The Neon Museum, oversees the collections, archive, and research library. She received a B.A. in History from the University of Nevada: Las Vegas and has experience working with museums in Las Vegas for the past seven years.
Image courtesy of Kelli Luchs.
Image courtesy of Emily Fellmer.