Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign

The sign, just to the south of the Las Vegas Strip, welcoming visitors to the city.

The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is a Las Vegas Strip landmark created in 1959 by Betty Willis and Ted Rogich for Clark County, Nevada. Willis received $4,000 for her work. The design is characteristic of the Googie architecture movement which was popular at the time. The sign was built by Western Neon. Over the years, the sign has been moved south several times on Las Vegas Boulevard as growth has continued. The back of the sign reads "Drive Carefully" and "Come Back Soon". When seen up close, the circles with the letters of the word "WELCOME" reveal themselves to be silver dollars.

The sign is currently located in the center island of Las Vegas Boulevard across from the (now closed) Klondike Hotel & Casino. Some consider the sign to be the "official" southern end of the Las Vegas Strip. The sign, like most of the strip, sits in the town of Paradise and is located roughly four miles south of the actual city limits of Las Vegas. (Such distinctions are usually ignored by both locals and tourists, who refer to the entire metro area as "Las Vegas".)

With the sign so far away from the city itself, the Las Vegas City Council erected a Welcome to Fabulous Downtown Las Vegas sign just within the city limits of the City of Las Vegas, on Las Vegas Boulevard. In 2006, yet another sign, larger yet almost identical to the sign on Las Vegas Boulevard, was erected on the center meridian of Boulder Highway near Harmon Avenue.

File:Nevada Las Vegas Centennial.jpg

On a Nevada license plate.

The image of the sign is featured on the Nevada license plate that was issued to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the City of Las Vegas in 2005.[1]

The sign is currently owned by Young Electric Sign Company which leases it to Clark County, while the design itself is in the public domain.

History

The sign lights up at night.

On October 4, 1999, the sign went dark for about a month when the company that had been paying the power bill was bought by another company who did not pay the power bill. When the problem was discovered, payment of the past due amount, under $60, was made and power was turned back on.

The design of the sign was never copyrighted; this has resulted in the image being ubiquitous on Las Vegas souvenirs, including smaller versions of the signs that also light up.

On March 6, 2007, a replica of the sign, larger than the original, was installed on Boulder Highway near Harmon Avenue. Like the original, it does not mark the border with Las Vegas; instead, it "represents the understood gateway from the Boulder Highway to Las Vegas." This is according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The lights from the sign are now removed and offered as a commemorative souvenir. OfficialLasVegasLight.com will donate a portion of the proceeds to benefit local charities. [2]

On December 8, 2008, a small parking lot was opened in the median of Las Vegas Boulevard to allow official public access to the sign for the first time. Prior to the parking lot's construction, visitors to the sign were forced to cross the northbound or southbound lanes of Las Vegas Blvd. without the benefit of any traffic signal or crosswalk. While no one is known to have been killed while trying to access the sign, increasing traffic at the south end of the Strip has made a crossing increasingly dangerous. The new parking lot provides 10 standard parking spaces, two handicapped spaces, and two large spaces for buses or limousines.

The sign can be seen in satellite images of its coordinates between the McCarran International Airport and the Bali Hai Golf Club.

External links

• Daylight photos of the sign, both Front and Back