The Trader Bills gift shop-turned-motorcycle shop sits at 328 Fremont Street inside the Fremont Street Experience. Information about the sign is available in the Southern Nevada Neon Survey Sheet.
Site address: 328 Fremont St
Sign owner: Marshall Family, LP
Sign details: The current building was constructed in 1943 (Assessor). Trader Bill's was a Western style leather and gift shop (RoadsideArch.com). The business has been located downtown at least since the 1930's or 1940's (UNLV digital photo collection) but possibly longer (Shemeligian, 1997). The store moved to its present location by the 1950's (RoadsideArch.com). It later became the Jewelry Outpost and Las Vegas Harley-Davidson (Shemeligian).
Sign condition: Condition 3-4. Cabinet and lights are in good condition. The paint on the street side of the sign is extremely faded.
Sign form: Blade
Sign-specific description: The metal cabinet is shaped like an upside down "L" which points toward the building. The cabinet is painted red. On the side of the sign facing Las Vegas Boulevard the paint has faded almost completely to reveal the earlier blue paint. An arrow-shaped metal cabinet runs along the Fremont Street side of the sign. The sides of the arrow are painted yellow. Three rows of yellow incandescent light bulbs cover the shaft of the arrow and nine rows cover the feathers and head. "Trader" is spelled out in yellow san serif channel letters which run horizontally across the top of the sign. The interiors of the letters are outlined in white neon tubing. "BILLS" (no apostrophe) runs vertically down the sign in the same channel lettering. Rungs run along the spine of the sign and what appears to be a ladder is located under "Trader" at the top of the sign. A plaque on the back of the arrowhead near the last "S" in "BILLS" has a YESCO logo and states "THIS SIGN IS THE PROPERTY OF THE YOUNG ELECTRIC SIGN COMPANY-{illegible] 876-8080
Sign - type of display: Neon and incandescent
Sign - media: Steel
Sign - non-neon treatments: Incandescent
Sign environment: This location is in the Fremont Street Experience on the corner of Fremont street and Fourth Street. It is across the street from Neonopolis and surrounded by other gift shops.
Sign manufacturer: It has the YESCO logo and states that it is the property of YESCO though it is not confirmed if they manufactured it.
Sign - date of installation: Circa 1960's
Sign - date of redesign/move: The sign is probably from the 1960's (Roadside Architecture). A photograph circa 1960 shows the sign painted dark blue with yellow letters (Classic Las Vegas, n.d.). A photograph from 1991 shows the color scheme unchanged (Classic Las Vegas). The sign was painted its current red color by 2006 (RoadsideArch.com).
Sign - thematic influences: The building is Western style brick and weeping mortar.
Survey - research locations: Clark County Assessor Classic Las Vegas. (n.d.). A brief history of Fremont Street, North side of the street, Third to Fourth. Retrieved from http://classiclasvegas.squarespace.com/downtown-history/2007/5/3/a-brief-history-of-fremont-street-cont.html RoadsideArcitecture. Las vegas Signs, Trader Bill's. Retrieved from http://www.roadarch.com/signs/nvvegas3.html Shemeligian, B. (1997 June 19). Landmark downtown shop changes focus. Las Vegas Sun. Retrieved from https://lasvegassun.com/news/1997/jun/09/landmark-downtown-shop-changes-focus/ UNLV Digital Collections. (n.d.). Film transparency showing Trader Bill's souvenir shop in Las Vegas, circa 1930s-1940s. Retrieved from http://n2t.net/ark:/62930/d1nk2c
Surveyor: Mitchell Cohen
Survey - date completed: 2017-08-14
Sign keywords: Blade; Neon; Incandescent; Steel

On July 15, 1975, Pamela Larkins interviewed Mary E. Habbart (born 1897 in Boothwyn, Pennsylvania) in her home in Las Vegas, Nevada. The two discuss Habbart’s personal family history and her family’s reasons for moving to Las Vegas. Habbart also describes social and economic changes to Las Vegas and her local dairy farm.

Part 1: Interviewed by Stefani Evans. Myron G. Martin, President and CEO, and Donald D. Snyder, Chairman of the Board of Directors, share their memories of the founding of The Smith Center for the Performing Arts from the first non-for-profit foundation formed in 1996. The second iteration led by Snyder in 1999 brought in Martin--former Director of UNLV Performing Arts Center--and created a sustainable business plan for a center for the performing arts that would be accessible geographically and culturally for all segments of Nevada society. Here, Martin and Snyder recall how land, funding, and legislation for The Smith Center depended on the ""power of the project"" and the Snyder-Martin team's ability to overcome skeptics in the public, the Nevada Legislature, the Clark County Commission, the Las Vegas City Council, and the Don Reynolds Foundation. Martin and Snyder satisfied the various requirements for each organization and earned unanimous approval at each stop--in fact, the $50 million donation to The Smith Center was the largest the Don Reynolds Foundation had ever granted largest. That the approvals came on three consecutive days from competing municipal jurisdictions makes the accomplishment even sweeter. Subjects: Las Vegas, NV; Cultural center; Performing arts; The Smith Center for the Performing Arts; The Smith Center; Not-for-profit;; Nevada Legislature; Clark County Commission; Las Vegas City Council; The Don Reynolds Foundation; Fundraising; Planning; Endowment; Part 2: Interviewed by Stefani Evans. Martin, who was the youngest of three boys raised in suburban Houston, Texas, likes to say that in college at the University of North Texas he played for the Atlanta Braves and the Texas Rangers. So he did--as the organist. He earned a Bachelors of Music in piano, organ, and voice and an MBA from Golden Gate University. He came to Las Vegas after a fifteen-year career with the Baldwin Piano Company as executive director of the Liberace Foundation; he later became president of UNLV?s Performing Arts Center and in 1999 he became president of the Las Vegas Performing Arts Center Foundation. Here, Martin and Snyder recall the process whereby they hired architect David Schwarz of Washington, DC, to create The Smith Center's ""timeless, elegant"" look; creating a ""shared vocabulary"" by visiting 14 performing venues in 5 European countries; the City of Las Vegas's RFP that resulted in hiring Whiting-Turner Contracting Company; the exterior art/artists, significance of the bell tower, Founding Fifty(seven), and the ability of the theater to adapt from staging The Book of Mormon to staging a community funeral for two slain police officers. Subjects: The Smith Center; The Smith Center for the Performing Arts; Architecture; Fundraising; Acoustics; Public private partnerships; Request for proposals; Whiting-Turner; Theater Projects Group; vocabulary; Part 3: Interviewed by Stefani Evans. Author Jack Sheehan, joining this third session on The Smith Center in his role as Don Snyder's biographer, explains the way he envisions the place of The Smith Center in the larger context of Las Vegas. Martin and Snyder provide names for the group that grew out of the Call to Action meeting and founded the original Las Vegas Performing Arts Foundation. They share anecdotes of a 2005 trip, wherein they were joined by Las Vegas City Councilman Lawrence Weekly, City of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, and consultant to the City of Las Vegas Dan Van Epp to visit City Place and the Kravis Center for Performing Arts in West Palm Beach as an example of a place where a performing arts center was a catalyst for revitalization in an area of underused and underutilized urban land. They discuss opening night, March 10, 2012, /From Dust To Dreams: Opening Night at the Smith Center For The Performing Arts/, which was produced broadcast live on national Public Broadcasting System (PBS) television stations, produced by George Stevens Jr. and directed and produced by Michael Stevens for The Stevens Company; hosted by Neil Patrick Harris; and featuring Jennifer Hudson, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Emmylou Harris, Martina McBride, Carole King, Arturo Sandoval, Joshua Bell, Mavis Staples, Pat Monahan; American Ballet Theater dancers Marcello Gomes and Luciana Paris; also Broadway performers Brian Stokes Mitchell, Laura Osnes, Cheyenne Jackson, Sherie Rene Scott, Montego Glover, and Benjamin Walker. Martin describes how provisions of Nevada SB235--introduced March 6, 2017, signed into law by Governor Bob Sandoval, and became effective October 1, 2017--for the regulation of ticket sales to an athletic contest or live entertainment event affect The Smith Center ticket sales. They talk of providing 3,600 good construction jobs during the recession, of Discovery Childrens Museum, of future development plans for the entire 61-acre Symphony Park parcel, and of a second capital campaign to increase the endowment to $100 million to enable The Smith Center to be economically sustainable.

Interviewed by Catherine Bellver. Velma Haselton was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1914. She worked as an assistant bookkeeper for Hart, Schaffner and Marx and rose to Assistant Credit Manager. Velma worked at various jobs after she married for the second time and her son was born. She also represented the San Francisco CPA firm Lybrand, Ross Brothers and Montgomery (now Coopers Lybrand) in various capacities, both in California and St. Louis, eventually attaining the position of controller. Velma moved to Las Vegas for the first time in the 1950s, where she and her husband Don ran a coffee shop at the Park Lane Motel on South Fifth Street. Family requirements necessitated a move back to California. In 1971, Velma and her third husband, Charles Haselton, "retired" to Las Vegas. Velma immediately went to work as a cost accountant for United Pipeline, and later as an accountant for Kafoury Armstrong, a CPA firm. She eventually ran her own accounting business. Velma also held memberships and offices in various women's service groups.