Neon Wars: Las Vegas Signs Strike a Glow for Brighter Future

When President Richard M. Nixon turned off the lights in this neon capital in 1973, the city’s largest hotel harnessed a horse to turn a generator that kept the resort’s marquee glowing.

Such is the ingenuity that has fueled the neon wars that flash incessantly between downtown’s Glitter Gulch and The Strip, the electric ribbon strung across the desert.

Las Vegas, Tokyo and Mexico City have been described as the sign capitals of the world, with the art rapidly moving from the old days of the 40-watt bulb to the modern age of electronic wizardry.

Bigger and brighter are the goals as the city’s gambling resorts spend millions of dollars for the glow designed to coax billions from the 13 million people who visit the city annually.

Visitors to downtown’s Glitter Gulch find that the millions of bulbs and miles of neon tubing provide a toasty warmth on chilly winter nights.

On the Strip, tourists stop to snap pictures in front of the sprawling neon artwork of the Stardust Hotel. The 18-story sign’s 40,000 light bulbs are enough to illuminate a small town. The sign has 30 miles of wiring, 38 tons of steel, and enough concrete and paint to provide foundations and coating for 27 houses.

Down the Strip there’s Lucky, the 13-story neon clown beckoning gamblers and families to the Circus Circus Hotel and Casino. Farther north is the Sahara hotel’s $1-million 22-story sign. The city’s highest, it requires a special built-in crane at the top to allow workers to reach its upper limits.

The newest entry is at the Palace Station Casino along Interstate 15, the artery used by millions of Californians each year. That sign is more than 12 stories tall and covers 7,500 square feet.

The bright lights of Las Vegas have long attracted worldwide attention.

“We have a steady flow of sign manufacturers from Japan tour our plant every year, checking to see the latest innovations,” said Richard Linford, service manager for Young Electric Sign Co.

The Salt Lake City-based company controls 70% to 75% of the signs in Las Vegas. Each night, Linford said, crews fan out across the city with tape recorders, taking note of signs that have lost their glow, bulbs that have succumbed to slingshots, rocks, BB guns, weather or age.

Linford, who has been with the company for 20 years, remembers another era when Las Vegas casinos were content with smaller, less flashy signs.

‘A Little Bit Bigger’

“I don’t think anyone thought the signs would grow to what they are today,” Linford said. “The casinos started out with real small neon signs. But everyone wanted to get something just a little bit bigger.”

Nevada Power Co.’s biggest customer is the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas and second is Nellis Air Force Base. However, the city’s seven top resorts do rank among the top 12 electric customers.

Most Las Vegas resorts kept their signs lighted 24 hours a day until the Arab oil embargo began in 1973.

On Nov. 16, 1973, hotels shut off their outside signs to comply with Nixon’s request for voluntary cutbacks in energy use.

That’s when the Las Vegas Hilton recruited an aging workhorse to shuffle in a circle three or four hours a night, pumping 5,500 watts of power from a generator and keeping the hotel marquee aglow while much of the city was dark.

Cost a ‘Bit of Hay’

“All it cost us was a little bit of hay,” Hilton spokesman Bruce Banke recalled. “In fact, if we could only figure a way to do it, we could put a lot of horses to work now.”

The resort, which includes the world’s largest hotel, spends about $4 million annually on electricity, consuming as much power as a city of 15,000 people.

As the effects of the embargo began to ebb, Las Vegas resorts were allowed to light their signs for three hours on the weekend, then three hours a day. Soon it became business as usual, with the signs glowing around the clock.

When the bitter cold winter of 1977 left Eastern states with dwindling gas supplies, the Nevada Public Service Commission, in a symbolic, energy-saving gesture, adopted a regulation banning the use of lighted signs during the day.

That gesture was not enough to quiet some critics. In U.S. Senate hearings last year to consider distribution of cheap power from Hoover Dam, Sen. Howard M. Metzenbaum (D-Ohio) criticized providing it to light Las Vegas signs.

Nevada Power officials say it costs about $2,500 a month to operate the largest signs in Las Vegas. Because of advanced technology, such as the $1-million computerized neon message center at Caesars Palace, that’s about the same as it was a dozen years ago when signs were smaller and energy costs cheaper.