IN LOVE (Moulin Rouge Letters)

Moulin Rouge letters, photographed before their 2020 restoration

In March 26, 1960, inside a shuttered casino in West Las Vegas, civil rights leaders and casino executives gathered to sign an agreement that would change American entertainment history forever. The Moulin Rouge—closed since financial collapse ended its six-month dream—became the birthplace of integrated Las Vegas that day.

But five years earlier, Betty Willis sat at her Western Neon drafting table, one of the only women in a man's trade, studying Parisian fonts for days. She wanted the letters "as impressive and as happy" as possible. Her hand-drawn script would welcome both Black and white patrons through the same front door—a revolutionary act in 1955 Nevada.

Photographed here in 2016, before restoration—these 1,200-pound letters stood weathered and dark in The Neon Museum's Boneyard, rescued from demolition in 2009. Four years after this image was captured, master artisan Oscar Gonzalez spent 293 hours re-illuminating them with 832 feet of hand-bent neon tubing, bringing them back to life in September 2020.

They glow pink against the desert night now—not as nostalgia, but as witnesses. Civil rights. Women pioneers. Endangered artisanship. This is museum-quality documentation.

↓ Explore the Complete Story Below

  • Official Name: Moulin Rouge Hotel & Casino Sign
    Sign Components: Large cursive neon letters spelling "MOULIN ROUGE" (visible in Ludo's photo: "IN LOVE" portion from the word "MOULIN")
    Original Business: Moulin Rouge Hotel & Casino
    Years Active: May 24, 1955 – October 1955 (6 months operational)
    Original Address: 900 West Bonanza Road, Las Vegas, Nevada (West Las Vegas/Westside)
    Designer: Betty Willis (1923-2015), Western Neon — One of the only female sign designers of her era
    Design Company: Western Neon (Willis previously worked at YESCO, Ad-Art)
    Physical Specifications:

    • 11 letters ranging 14-18 feet tall, spanning 17-3 feet wide

    • Weight: 1,200 pounds (letter "M" alone)

    • 60-foot-long neon sign with hotel name in stylized cursive writing, Googie style emblematic of 1950s

    Museum Acquisition:

    • Moved to Neon Museum days before 2009 fire for safekeeping

    • Re-illuminated September 16, 2020 in original 1955 configuration

    • Listed on National Register of Historic Places (1992)

  • The Moulin Rouge Casino (1955)

    The Moulin Rouge opened May 24, 1955 as the first racially integrated hotel-casino in the United States. At a time when Las Vegas earned the moniker "The Mississippi of the West" due to its segregation practices that began in the 1930s, this $3.5 million establishment broke ground in every sense.

    Founders & Ownership:
    White investors led by Will Max Schwartz (38% ownership), Louis Rubin (29% - owner of Chandler's Restaurant NYC), Alexander Bisno (31% - California real estate). Heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis was recruited with 2% ownership to serve as official greeter and spokesperson.

    The Venue:
    Named after the famed Parisian cabaret, with 110 rooms, swimming pool, 60-foot-high neon Eiffel Tower, stunning showroom. Designed by local architects Walter Zick and Harris Sharp in "Googie-populuxe" Modernist style.

    Entertainment Legends:
    Opening night May 24, 1955 was hosted by Joe Louis, featuring The Platters and flashy chorus-line routines. Within months: Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Jack Benny, Dinah Washington, Lionel Hampton, Pearl Bailey, Peter Lawford.

    The marquee show "The Tropi Can Can" — a colorful African-themed late night revue featuring Las Vegas's only all-black chorus line — made the cover of Life Magazine in June 1955.

    The Closure:
    Financial mismanagement forced closure in October 1955 — just 6 months after opening. By December, bankruptcy filing.

  • THE MARCH 26, 1960 CIVIL RIGHTS AGREEMENT

    This is why the Moulin Rouge transcends nostalgia and enters museum territory.

    In 1960, black Las Vegans threatened to march on the Las Vegas Strip against racial discrimination. Days before the planned march, the closed Moulin Rouge hosted a hurriedly-arranged meeting on March 26, 1960 between NAACP president Dr. James McMillan, Nevada Governor Grant Sawyer, casino executives, city officials, and police chief.

    At this meeting, mediated by Las Vegas Sun editor Hank Greenspun, gaming bosses agreed to end segregation. The casinos would be integrated that day — March 26, 1960.

    Impact: This agreement effectively ended segregation on the Las Vegas Strip, making the Moulin Rouge site the birthplace of integrated entertainment in Las Vegas.

    BETTY WILLIS: WOMEN PIONEER

    Betty Jane Willis (May 20, 1923 – April 19, 2015) was born in Overton, Nevada, daughter of Stephen R. Whitehead, first assessor of Clark County. She was the ONLY female commercial artist at YESCO because creating neon signs had traditionally been a man's trade.

    Her Process:
    Willis studied French-style lettering and drew the elegant Moulin Rouge script by hand — common before computer-aided design. She later recalled: "I wanted to make it as impressive and as happy and as good as I could".

    Willis began at YESCO, then Ad-Art, Fox West Coast Theaters, before designing neon signs at Western Neon. She continued designing until retirement at age 77. Her signature piece: the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign (1959).

    SARANN KNIGHT-PREDDY: FIRST BLACK WOMAN GAMING LICENSE

    Sarann Knight-Preddy (July 27, 1920 – December 22, 2014) became the first Black woman to receive a gaming license in Nevada in 1950.

    In 1989, she and husband Joe Preddy purchased the Moulin Rouge, determined to revive it and the surrounding West Side neighborhood. Despite selling her own home to fund restoration, they faced financing difficulties and fires destroyed the structure in 2003 and 2009.

    She helped get the Moulin Rouge listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1992. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by UNLV — only the second African-American woman to receive this honor (Diana Ross being the other).

    PERFORMERS WHO BROKE SEGREGATION

    Even though Sammy Davis Jr., Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald had names on hotel marquees at Strip casinos, Black performers were not permitted in the front door and were required to stay in boarding houses in the Westside.

    In one incident in the late 1950s, ex-Moulin Rouge dancer Anna Bailey was part of a group of Black women denied entry to see Frank Sinatra at the Sands. Sinatra himself escorted them into the lounge and seated them at his private table.

  • Original Construction (1955)

    Neon Bending Technique:
    Willis drew the entire sign by hand, studying Parisian-style fonts before creating the elegant script. The sign featured hand-bent neon tubing in the iconic pink/fluorescent color.

    The sign used neon gas and phosphorous blue glass to create the iconic fluorescent pink color — a signature of 1950s Googie style.

    2020 Museum Restoration

    Restoration Company: Hartlauer Signs

    Process:
    To re-lamp the 11 letters, Hartlauer used more than 832 linear feet of neon tubing. Re-electrification and reinstallation took 293 man-hours to complete.

    Restoration involved meticulous work: testing intact neon units on the sign, creating etchings of the sign to blow new units to achieve its iconic pink hue. Light-touch conservation approach preserved original neon while only minimal metalwork or paint was needed.

    Artisan: Oscar Gonzalez, YESCO neon bender (30+ years experience), worked on Moulin Rouge restoration. Started at age 14 in Guadalajara, Mexico neon shop. Previously at Hartlauer Signs.

    Gonzalez describes the craft: "Definitely, it's an art. Art is something that gives you that kind of peace of mind." He blows into hoses connected to glass tubing over open flame, bending when the material becomes pliable like rubber.

    Endangered Craftsmanship

    YESCO once employed about 40 glass blowers; now only 6 remain. These technicians are some of the last artisans trained in classic tube-bending and hand-lettering techniques.

    "So many things go into making a neon sign — it's art, architecture, design and science, and bending the glass is a real craft that requires an artisan, of which there are fewer and fewer left".

  • UNLV Special Collections & Historical Sources:

    1. Loomis Dean Photography (May 1955 - Opening Week)

      • Professional documentation of opening night

    2. Jay Florian Mitchell Collection (Nevada State Museum)

    3. Don T. Walker Photograph Collection (UNLV)

    4. Vintage Las Vegas Archive

    5. 2020 Re-illumination Documentation

    6. Sarann Knight-Preddy Oral History (UNLV OH-01508)

  • Movies:

    • Casino (1995) — The 1980s Club Rouge (reopened casino) was used for the pen-stabbing scene

    Academic:

    • Listed on National Register of Historic Places (1992)

    • Listed on City of Las Vegas Historic Property Register

    • Featured in UNLV Oral History Research Center civil rights collections

    Documentaries:

    • "The Gaming Queen" — featuring Sarann Knight-Preddy

    • Multiple UNLV Special Collections video archives

    Books:

    • "The March that Never Happened: Desegregating the Las Vegas Strip" by Claytee White (UNLV Oral History Research Center director)

    • "72 Years in Las Vegas" — Sarann Knight-Preddy's autobiography (2014)

  • Vernacular Architecture as Cultural Artifact

    Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour's seminal 1972 book "Learning from Las Vegas" established commercial vernacular architecture — with its apotheosis in neon lights of the Las Vegas Strip — as legitimate subjects for serious architectural study.

    Scott Brown's photographs documented her travels to Las Vegas, with her lens consistently drawn to distant objects that steer urban movement: billboards, hoardings, neon signs. She wrote: "space is not the most important constituent of suburban form. Communication across space is more important".

    The Moulin Rouge Sign as "Decorated Shed":
    Venturi and Scott Brown's basic assertion was a turn towards commercial vernacular, not a vernacular of gables and dormers. They saw the Modernist rejection of history, ornament, and denotative symbolism as irresponsible and boring.

    "The book reminds us that throughout most of architectural history, until Modernism, iconography, symbolism and ornament were central to the expression of buildings. Las Vegas may seem so modern but it is merely doing what has been done for centuries".

    Photography as Research Tool:
    Scott Brown stated: "Photography was our primary tool" in arguing that Las Vegas was worth looking at, that there was much to learn from the "ugly and ordinary" architectures rather than the "heroic and original".

    Museum Legitimacy:
    The Moulin Rouge sign represents the intersection of:

    1. Commercial vernacular elevated to cultural artifact status

    2. Women's contribution to male-dominated sign design industry

    3. Civil rights history embedded in architectural form

    4. Endangered craftsmanship worthy of preservation

  • This photograph positions within several curatorial frameworks:

    Documentary Photography Tradition Walker Evans documented American vernacular before it vanished. This photograph captures an ephemeral museum installation that no longer exists—the "In Love" configuration was dismantled after the full Moulin Rouge restoration. Unlike restored signs (which can be re-photographed), this is a singular historical document.

    Civil Rights Documentation The Moulin Rouge was the first racially integrated casino in America (1955)—six months before Rosa Parks, one year after Brown v. Board of Education. The March 26, 1960 meeting that desegregated Las Vegas Strip casinos took place in its coffee shop. This sign is a civil rights artifact.

    Women Pioneers Designed by Betty Willis (1923-2015), one of the only female sign designers in 1950s Las Vegas. Willis also created the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign—deliberately left uncopyrighted so it would "belong to everyone."

    Museum Practice Documentation Rare example of meta-institutional photography: this image documents how museums creatively manage collections during funding transitions. Valuable for museum studies scholars researching preservation methodology.

    Relevant for collections focusing on:

    • American civil rights history

    • Women pioneers in design

    • Documentary photography (Walker Evans lineage)

    • Museum studies and preservation practice

    • Endangered American craftsmanship

    Institutional Alignment:

    • SFMOMA: Walker Evans vernacular continuity + civil rights documentation

    • Getty Museum: California-Nevada cultural exchange, Western American history

    • Centre Pompidou Constellation — Cabinet de la Photographie: Meta-documentary (photographer documenting museum documenting culture)

    • Smithsonian: Civil rights artifact, American social evolution

  • Primary Sources:

    1. National Park Service - https://www.nps.gov/places/nevada-moulin-rouge-hotel.htm

    2. The Neon Museum Official - https://neonmuseum.org/news/las-vegas-moulin-rouge/

    3. The Neon Museum (Betty Willis) - https://neonmuseum.org/news/betty-willis-neon-sign-artist/

    4. The Neon Museum (Sarann Knight-Preddy) - https://neonmuseum.org/news/sarann-knight-preddy-womens-history-month/

    5. The Neon Museum (Restoration) - https://neonmuseum.org/preservation-in-action/

    6. UNLV Special Collections Portal - https://special.library.unlv.edu/ (Multiple archival photo collections)

    Secondary Academic Sources:

    1. Wikipedia - Moulin Rouge Hotel - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moulin_Rouge_Hotel

    2. Wikipedia - Betty Willis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Willis_(artist)

    3. Wikipedia - Sarann Knight-Preddy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarann_Knight-Preddy

    4. SAH Archipedia - https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/NV-01-SO16

    5. BlackPast.org - Sarann Knight-Preddy - https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/preddy-sarann-knight-1920/

    6. BlackPast.org - Moulin Rouge - https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/moulin-rouge/

    7. Intermountain Histories - https://www.intermountainhistories.org/items/show/26

    Learning from Las Vegas Sources:

    1. Wikipedia - Learning from Las Vegas - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_from_Las_Vegas

    2. Frieze Magazine - Denise Scott Brown - https://www.frieze.com/article/learning-denise-scott-brown

    3. Aperture Foundation - Scott Brown Interview - https://aperture.org/editorial/denise-scott-brown-las-vegas/

    4. Urban Design Group - https://www.udg.org.uk/publications/udlibrary/learning-las-vegas

    Craftsmanship & Restoration:

    1. YESCO - Neon Museum Partnership - https://www.yesco.com/yesco-and-the-neon-museum-las-vegas/

    2. Las Vegas Weekly - Oscar Gonzalez Profile - https://lasvegasweekly.com/ae/2024/nov/14/vegas-local-craftspeople-keeping-trades-alive/

    3. American Craft Council - Neon Renaissance - https://craftcouncil.org/articles/a-neon-renaissance/

    Archival Images:

    1. Vintage Las Vegas (Curated Archive) - https://vintagelasvegas.com/

    2. Las Vegas Review-Journal - Multiple articles 2015-2020

    3. Historic Las Vegas Project - https://historiclasvegasproject.com/

  • The original Moulin Rouge building burned in a 2003 fire and was demolished in 2017. Days before a 2009 fire threatened the remaining signage, The Neon Museum moved key fragments to safety—including these iconic pink cursive letters.

    Between 2009 and 2020, the letters stood unlit in the Museum's Boneyard—preserved but dormant, waiting for restoration funding and artisans skilled enough to revive them. This photograph, captured by Ludovic Cazeba in 2016, documents that transitional state: the letters weathered by decades of desert sun and neglect, their hand-bent tubes dark, their pink glow just a memory.

    The 2020 Restoration:

    In September 2020, The Neon Museum re-illuminated the Moulin Rouge sign in its original 1955 configuration. The restoration was led by Hartlauer Signs and master neon bender Oscar Gonzalez, a Mexican immigrant with 30+ years of experience who started at age 14 in a Guadalajara neon shop.

    The meticulous process required:

    • 832 linear feet of hand-bent neon tubing (replacing damaged sections)

    • 293 man-hours of precision work

    • Testing intact neon units and creating etchings to blow new tubes achieving the iconic pink hue

    • Light-touch conservation approach preserving Betty Willis's original 1955 design

    Today, the letters glow pink once more—no longer advertising a casino, but testifying to three intertwined legacies: the civil rights activists who ended segregation beneath their glow, the woman designer who created them, and the Mexican artisan who brought them back to life.

    This piece is one of the most historically significant signs in The Neon Museum's collection—not for its size or spectacle, but for what it represents: the courage to challenge segregation in America's most segregated entertainment city.

    In interviews, Neon Museum Executive Director Aaron Berger has called the Moulin Rouge his favorite sign because of its civil rights legacy, stating: "When I learned about Moulin Rouge and its importance in the civil rights movement—that's when I knew this was a true museum."

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