Las Vegas is Famous for the Strip, and its Neon Boneyard

You’ve probably already been to Las Vegas as a business traveler.  Countless numbers of conventions for all types of meetings take place in the city’s huge convention spaces.  So since you’ve seen that, you also saw the incredible Las Vegas Strip, with the gigantic casino hotels and marvels like the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the fighting pirate ships and the giant pyramid that’s visible from space.

Ok, but have you ever seen the city’s amazing Neon Museum?   It’s a boneyard of some of the iconic neon signs from torn-down casinos of days past. One of the most famous artifacts in this outdoor museum is from Binions, and there’s also a giant tin man leaning down to play pool.

The best time to tour the outdoor museum, located at 113 N 4th St. in Las Vegas, is at night, when some of the neon is lighted as it once was when in service.

More of the neon is lighted by spotlights, long since disconnected and no longer functioning.

The museum tour is like a history lesson in the earliest casinos and businesses to open in Vegas since the 1950s; you see the Moulin-Rouge sign that was the first casino to allow African-Americans to gamble, a place that was only open for six months in 1960.  The guide has done this a few too many times though, as his sing-song delivery can be a bit annoying.

Along with the Neon Boneyard museum, another museum that’s highly recommended is the Mob Museum, which is a four-story former court room that tells the complete history of crime in the US, not only in Vegas but other places.

The interesting thing about the Mob Museum is that it tells the story from both the g-man and the criminal points of view.  So many exhibits and photos, it really explains how some of the rackets worked and what happened to the bad guys. The Mob Museum is located in downtown Las Vegas at 300 Stewart Avenue, open every day.