The Neon Museum Lights-Up Historic Moulin Rouge Sign
We couldn't be more proud of our partners at The Neon Museum in Las Vegas.
The monumental Moulin Rouge letters - one of The Neon Museum’s most historically significant Neon Boneyard sign exhibits - have been rearranged and re-illuminated to accurately portray how the sign was originally displayed in 1955.
These letters now join the growing number of illuminated Las Vegas neon signs on display at The Neon Museum.
The Moulin Rouge was famous for being the first major racially integrated casino and later, in March of 1960, hosted a meeting that effectively ended segregation in Las Vegas.
The Moulin Rouge sign was designed by one of the few female sign designers of the era, Betty Willis, who spent several days researching Parisian-style fonts before drawing the entire sign by hand.
To re-lamp the 11 letters, which range in height from 14- to 18-feet tall and span from 17 to 3 feet, Hartlauer Signs used more than 832 linear feet of neon tubing in the project, while neon gas and phosphorous blue glass (which makes the color pink neon) were used to give the neon its iconic, fluorescent pink color. Weighing in at 1,200 pounds, the letter “M” was one of many letters rearranged during the project. In total, it took workers 293 labor hours to complete the process. Now, visitors to The Neon Museum's Boneyard can see the Moulin Rouge sign illuminated just how it appeared when it last functioned.
