Newsletter issued by the Las Vegas Rotary Club

The sign for Backstage Bar & Billiards sits at 601 Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas. Information about the sign is available in the Southern Nevada Neon Survey Data Sheet.
Site address: 601 Fremont St
Sign owner: DJ Lethal co-owned with DJ Scotty
Sign details: This building dates back to 1957. Triple B opened in 2012 as a billiard hall bar and concert venue. It is filled with a lot of Rock Memorabilia which includes a "turntable library" which they claim showcases over 8 decades of rock history. This location was furnished by rock outfitter Anvil Cases. This property got its name by being "backstage" to the adjoining Fremont Country Club.
Sign condition: 5- looks relatively new and still in great condition
Sign form: Variation of a Bull Nose Sign
Sign-specific description: Their entrance is on the corner of 6th (going South) and Fremont with a blue bull nose type sign in a triangle shape. The base of the triangle sign is right above the entrance. The triangle border has a blue (argon) strip with incandescents lining both sides of the neon tubing. At the base of the sign there is a blue (argon) curved platform (half circle placed adjoining to the base of the triangle). On this platform there are 5 separate strips of argon tubes. Above the platform states "Backstage Bar & Billiards" in white cursive channeled letters. Above the words Backstage and Billiards there are two martini glasses with a pool ball and flag in each glass. At the top of the triangle portion of the sign there is their logo "Triple B" in cursive with Triple in Blue and B in white. Below the bull nose sign there is a reader board that wraps around the building. This reader board is also lined with incandescent light bulbs. In the middle of the of the reader board there is a black background rectangle with 3 rhombus's lined in incandescent light bulbs in a design.
Sign - type of display: Neon, incandescent and reader board
Sign - media: Steel and Plastic
Sign - non-neon treatments: Reader Board
Sign animation: Flasher for incandescent light bulbs
Sign environment: Fremont East district East District, next to other bars and restaurants. This location is right across the street from the El Cortez. Also they claim to be "backstage" to the adjoining Fremont Country Club which inspired their name.
Sign manufacturer: Ultra Signs' recently bought out by Jones Las Vegas ( of Jones SIgns) who did not have records of this sign.
Sign - date of installation: 2012 when the bar opened
Sign - thematic influences: On Fremont many of the entrances are at the corner intersections, so the bull nose sign has been prominent design type to draw attention to the entrance of the company. This is remnant of the Golden Nugget and Binion's Horseshoe put up their bull nose signs in 1961.
Sign - artistic significance: The curved platform at the bottom of their bull nose sign looks like an old retro movie theater style sign platform that you would see in the 1940's/50's. Particularly with their reader board with incandescent light bulbs speaks to this era as well.
Survey - research locations: Assessor's page, triple B website http://www.backstagebarlv.com/ , Las Vegas Weekly Newspaper article https://lasvegasweekly.com/nightlife/lowball-diary/2012/dec/05/triple-b-fills-downtowns-watering-hole-hole/
Survey - research notes: Fremont Bars.com has a photo of their main sign being installed. http://www.fremontstreetbars.com/2012/11/29/welcome-to-the-neighborhood-backstage-bar-billiards/
Survey - other remarks: The Ultra Signs logo is visible on the left side of the sign.
Surveyor: Emily Fellmer
Survey - date completed: 2017-08-11
Sign keywords: Neon; Incandescent; Steel; Plastic; Flashing; Reader board; Bullnose; Marquee

An unidentified person looks at the ruins of the H. D. and L. D. Porter Brothers Store in Rhyolite, Nevada. The remains of two wooden buildings and several mining tailing piles are visible in the background. Originally from Illinois, the brothers opened their first store in Johannesburg, Ca. in 1902. Moving with the mining booms, they opened stores in Ballarat, Beatty, Pioneer and Rhyolite. From the Ballarat store, H. D. Porter loaded thirty tons of merchandise onto an 18-mule team freight wagon and came east across Death Valley to the Bullfrog District. The original store was built on Main St. After the move to Golden St., the wooden building was used as a furniture store for the Porter Brothers. With the purchase of a lot on Golden Ave. the construction of a new stone building began in July 1906 and was finished four months later. According to the Rhyolite Herald, November 1906 "This is a large substantial structure, practically fireproof, and occupies a prominent site on Golden Street. The main floor is 30 x 80 feet, with a basement and gallery." Nels Linn was the contractor who did the stonework. The estimated cost was $10,000 for the complete construction of the building. One of the signs that hung from the Porter Brothers Store was "All Things Good But Whiskey". With all the saloons already established in Rhyolite, the Porter Brothers maintained a reputation of never selling liquor. Rhyolite is a ghost town in Nye County, Nevada. It is in the Bullfrog Hills, about 120 miles (190 km) northwest of Las Vegas, near the eastern edge of Death Valley. The town began in early 1905 as one of several mining camps that sprang up after a prospecting discovery in the surrounding hills. During an ensuing gold rush, thousands of gold-seekers, developers, miners and service providers flocked to the Bullfrog Mining District. Many settled in Rhyolite, which lay in a sheltered desert basin near the region's biggest producer, the Montgomery Shoshone Mine. Rhyolite declined almost as rapidly as it rose. After the richest ore was exhausted, production fell. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the financial panic of 1907 made it more difficult to raise development capital. In 1908, investors in the Montgomery Shoshone Mine, concerned that it was overvalued, ordered an independent study. When the study's findings proved unfavorable, the company's stock value crashed, further restricting funding. By the end of 1910, the mine was operating at a loss, and it closed in 1911. By this time, many out-of-work miners had moved elsewhere, and Rhyolite's population dropped well below 1,000. By 1920, it was close to zero. After 1920, Rhyolite and its ruins became a tourist attraction and a setting for motion pictures. Most of its buildings crumbled, were salvaged for building materials, or were moved to nearby Beatty or other towns, although the railway depot and a house made chiefly of empty bottles were repaired and preserved. The town is named for rhyolite, an igneous rock composed of light-colored silicates, usually buff to pink and occasionally light gray. It belongs to the same rock class, felsic, as granite but is much less common.