Sin City's neon never dims
Las Vegas was a railroad stop in 1905 and a gambling town by 1931, when Nevada legalized casinos to survive the Depression. The neon came next, and it has never really gone out — the Strip demolishes and rebuilds itself in decades-long cycles, but the light stays constant. Retired signs are not scrapped. They go to the Neon Museum's boneyard, where Stardust and Moulin Rouge lettering sits in the open desert like an archive nobody planned. The Moulin Rouge was the city's first racially integrated casino, open for six months in 1955 before closing under circumstances still argued about. Twenty minutes past the casino floor, Red Rock Canyon and the Spring Mountains draw hikers and climbers who never set foot on the Strip.
