Las Vegas, Neon, Nevada

Jackpot Motel Sign, the Neon Museum

Jackpot Motel Sign

I’ve been wanting to see the Neon Museum since I found out about it back in April 2011 but no tours were available.  I finally made it back and really enjoyed the tour.  The tour guide gave a great history of Las Vegas told through the signs.

I found out the Las Vegas Strip started as mom and pop motels that were trying to catch people coming in on the highway before they reached downtown which had the major hotels in the 50’s and 60’s.  Todays strip is where the old highway used to be, before the Interstates were built.  The strip is outside of Las Vegas proper so there were few building regulations which made it easy for the small hotels to set up shop.

Update: My full set of photos from the Neon Museum 

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California

Crocker Angel, Mountain View Cemetery

Crocker Angel, Moutnain View Cemetery, Oakland

The Crocker Angel is most famous sculpture at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland.  The angel the is staring up at the heavens with a bored expression on her face like she’s pondering why she’s the one to sit on a grave for eternity.

This is the grave of Henry S. Crocker who founded a printing company in Sacramento.    Hat tip to Mountain View People blog who explained to me who Henry Crocker was.  He’s the brother of Charles Crocker who was one the Big Four Railroad barons.  Charles Crocker has huge monument much higher up on the hill.   Though his brother Charles Crocker’s monument probably cost ten times as much, this much smaller marker has ten times the grace.

Here’s another shot of the angel by Thomas Hawk on Flickr with some snarky comments about the Crockers, though those comments were under the misconception that Henry Crocker was a banker.

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