Narrator affiliation: Paymaster, Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company (REECo)

The Jerry's Nugget Casino sign sits at 1821 North Las Vegas Boulevard. The family-owned and operated casino has been in business for over fifty years. Information about the sign is available in the Southern Nevada Neon Survey Data Sheet.
Site address: 1821 N Las Vegas Blvd
Sign owner: The Stamis Family
Sign details: In 1964, Jerry Stamis and Jerry Lodge opened Jerry's Nugget Casino. The property, formerly the Towne House Bar, was converted into a casino. Four years after its opening, the owners bought the nearby Bonanza Club along with its sign, adding an additional 10,000 square feet to their property. The site has undergone numerous renovations, including in 1982 when it became a full-service casino complete with a restaurant, bars, and nearly 700 slots. The porte cochere was also added at that time. In 1996, a theatre lounge was added as well as a bakery and even more gaming tables. The casino, which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014. This location still claims to cater to "locals." Currently, it consists of slots, table games, keno lounge, and a bingo hall, among other popular features.
Sign condition: About 4-5, appears to have relatively low damage
Sign form: Sculptural pylon
Sign-specific description: Neon sign looks to be in the form of an oil derrick, "Jerry's" in a nugget shape at the top, "Nugget" spelled downward in light blue neon, possibly was once orange.
Sign - type of display: Neon
Sign - media: Steel
Sign environment: Located in North Las Vegas along Las Vegas Blvd, near the Silver Nugget Casino.
Sign - date of installation: 1964 for most of the signage for the property
Sign - date of redesign/move: 1982 Porte Cochere added with expansion
Sign - thematic influences: The signage conveys the Old West theme of striking it rich with gold, silver or oil, as they have an oil rig for portion of their sign.
Survey - research locations: Neon Museum tour outline, Jerry's Nugget website http://www.jerrysnugget.com/ , recorder's office, Assessor's page
Survey - research notes: For the 50th anniversary of their Company they donated the money for the restoration of their sign which is showcased on the documentary "Restoration Neon" and remains in the Neon Museum.
Surveyor: Carlyle Constantino
Survey - date completed: 2017-07-12
Sign keywords: Neon; Steel; Pylon; Incandescent; Back to back; Reader board; Video screen

Dancer Charles Nur Fernald first came to Las Vegas in 1963 to perform for five weeks in the Kay Starr Show at the Sahara Hotel and again in 1964 working with Donn Arden for three months at the Desert Inn Hotel. Born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1939, Charles moved several times to various places in Arizona and southern California with his parents, Charles Knox Fernald and Marguerite Marie Higgins Fernald, and half-siblings before settling in Hollywood, California, where he remained (except for his short stints in Las Vegas) from 1961 to 1967. In January 1968 Charles came to Las Vegas to perform with Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca at the Flamingo Hotel. After the show closed Charles auditioned for Donn Arden to dance in the Lido de Paris show at the Stardust Hotel, where he remained for sixteen years, 1968 through 1984. He remains the only male dancer who performed with Lido through five different, consecutive productions. In 1969 Charles met his partner, Aquiles Garcia, who was a dancer at the Dunes Hotel. The couple remain in Las Vegas and have been together forty-five years. Charles’s father was very poor and left school after the third grade to go to work and help support his family. He was born in 1889 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the fifth of eleven children. As an eight-year-old he became a “groundhog,” a digger of New York’s underwater tunnels, who helped build the Holland Tunnel. At fifteen he made more money than his father selling newspapers, fresh fruit, and clothing door to door or from the street corner. According to Charles, his father “drank too much, ate too much, smoked too much, and loved too much.” As an only child, Charles’s mother had a very different upbringing from his father, although her family too was very poor. She was born in Detroit in 1902 to a railroad switchman father and mother who not only scrubbed the floors of wealthy Detroiters but also cooked meals for twenty-one boarders at a rooming house. Marguerite’s parents worked hard so they could send their only child to Catholic school and the Detroit Conservatory of Music.