by James King — news3lv.com

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — As America approaches its 250th birthday, one family company that helped define Las Vegas’ world-famous glow is marking more than a century of shaping the city’s skyline.

YESCO Custom Electric Signs has been in the Young family for 106 years, and owner Jeff Young said the company’s Las Vegas story began when the city was still small. “There’s only 5,000 people in Las Vegas when my grandfather was selling his first signs here. And we have just not stopped,” Young said.

Young said his grandfather, Thomas, arrived in the valley as neon was poised to take off. “My grandfather got a loan from his father for $300 at the start of the sign shop,” he said.

While YESCO did not install the city’s first neon sign, Young said the company’s work quickly became part of the city’s visual identity. “You know we can’t lay claim to the first neon sign. It was on the Overland Hotel downtown in 1928. But we do know document in 1934. It was sign after sign after sign after sign,” he said. Young also described the early scale of neon in Las Vegas: “The first neon sign in Las Vegas was maybe 10 inches tall. It’s a red hotel. It wasn’t our sign. Fast forward, fast forward. The miles and thousands of miles of neon that have come between now and then.”

Over the decades, YESCO installed signs for properties and landmarks including the Silver Slipper, the Golden Nugget, Vegas Vic, the Mirage, the Bellagio and the Venetian. But one of the most recognizable images associated with Las Vegas—the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign—has its own history.

“The sign was built by Western Neon, a competitor of ours, designed by Betty Willis who had worked for us at one time. And we purchased Western Neon and with that came the title to the sign,” Young said.

Young said Willis did not want the sign copyrighted. “Betty Willis felt strongly that the sign not be copyrighted,” he said. Young added, “If she had copyrighted it or someone had copyrighted it, we don’t think it had gone the way it does. Because every t-shirt, fridge magnet, everything you can think of with the logo on it endures.”

As the Strip has increasingly swapped neon for LEDs, YESCO continues to work on major projects, including the Sphere. “We did the exterior screen on the sphere. So we were the partner on that one,” Young said. “You think, wow, you know, from 1959 to today what Las Vegas has become. It’s been amazing for our family to be involved all these years.”

Young said Las Vegas remains a place where sign-making can be larger than life. “The biggest signs in the world are here. Some of the most of the biggest hotels in the world are here. The entertainment, the food. I mean, there’s really no place like Vegas on the planet. And being a sign maker in Las Vegas, imagine how we feel,” he said.

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