Vegas Vic has stood over 25 Fremont Street since 1951. He is forty feet tall, a cowboy in a yellow checked shirt and a red neckerchief, cigarette in his mouth, one arm raised. He was built by the Young Electric Sign Company for the Pioneer Club, which closed in 1995. The building beneath him has been a souvenir store since. Vic has outlasted the casino, the neighborhood he was built for, and most of the signs that stood near him.
The cowboy
The figure came out of a 1940s advertising campaign by the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, which used a cartoon cowboy, “Vegas Vic,” in national print ads. The Pioneer Club commissioned a three-dimensional neon version from YESCO, the Salt Lake City sign company that built most of the city’s large signs. The sign went up in 1951. His arm waved, and a recorded voice said “Howdy, podner” every fifteen minutes, until 1966, when Lee Marvin, filming across the street at the Mint, complained about the noise and the voice was turned off for good. The arm stopped waving in 1991.
When the Fremont Street Experience canopy was built in 1995, Vic’s hat was in the way. The top of it was trimmed to clear the structure. He has stood slightly shortened since.
Vickie
Vegas Vickie, a kicking cowgirl, went up in 1980 across the street on the Glitter Gulch, a club at 20 Fremont, as a companion to Vic. Her sign was taken down in 2017 when Derek Stevens demolished the Glitter Gulch and the Las Vegas Club to build Circa. Stevens had the sign restored and installed it inside Circa, where she now kicks above a bar on the casino floor named for her. She is visible from the street through the windows on Fremont.
What left
The signs that defined Fremont Street from the 1940s to the 1980s have mostly gone. The Mint’s sign, a tower of pink neon on the north side at First, came down when Binion’s absorbed the building in 1988. The Golden Nugget’s original marquee was replaced in Steve Wynn’s remodel. The Horseshoe’s sign, with its gold horseshoe and running bulbs, came down in the mid-2000s and was replaced by the Binion’s sign. The Las Vegas Club’s and Pioneer Club’s came down with the buildings.
A number of them survived. The Neon Museum, on Las Vegas Boulevard North about a mile from Fremont, opened its outdoor collection to the public in 2012 and holds more than 200 signs, among them the Horseshoe’s, the Golden Nugget’s 1950s lettering, the Mint’s, and pieces of the Pioneer Club’s. The museum’s tours run most evenings.
On Fremont East
A few restored signs have returned to the street. The city’s Fremont East district, east of the canopy, installed several historic signs along the median beginning in 2007 as part of the district’s identity: the Hacienda horse and rider, the Bow & Arrow motel sign, the Silver Slipper, and others, lit nightly. They are not where they were built, but they are on Fremont Street, which is closer than a museum.
Vic remains the one sign on the street that has not moved. The Pioneer Club building beneath him is a two-story storefront selling T-shirts. He has been photographed more than any other object in the city except the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, which is also YESCO’s, and which is younger than he is by eight years.