Photos show Tropicana signs at night. Two surveys were conducted to gather information about this sign. One was conducted in 2002 and one was conducted in 2017. PDFs are available for both surveys. See the 2017 survey PDF for additional information that is not included in the object description.
Site name: Tropicana Hotel and Casino (Las Vegas, Nev.)
Site address: 3801 S Las Vegas Blvd
Sign owner: Aztar
Sign details: The southeast corner of Las Vegas Blvd and Tropicana Boulevard belongs to the Tropicana Hotel Casino. The Tropicana is composed of two high-rise towers, the low-rise wings of rooms, and the casino itself. One tower faces southwest/northeast, while the other tower, further east on the property faces southeast/northwest. The expanse of the corner, near the street is an open concrete pedestrian plaza, with rising planters, a large functioning waterfall, also surrounded by foliage, and various vendors. The porte-cochere connects the plaza to the hotel, with the connecting bridge to the Excalibur, residing on top.
Sign condition: Structure 5 Surface 5 Lighting 5
Sign form: Pylon; Fascia
Sign-specific description: On the north and south faces of the porte-cochere roof line, on a pediment between the sloping blue roof and a row of brass fixtures, large channel letters in the faceted Tropicana font, horizontally spell "Tropicana." The exteriors are painted black wit a blue reflective finishing the interiors. They are filled with blue neon. The ceiling of the porte-cochere holds two distinct features to its credit. The north half is adorned with a glass domed hole through the roof. The interior thickness and recessed lip are covered in a polished metallic surface. Seashells adorn the edge where the lip meets the ceiling as well as on the face of the ledge as well. Teal, red and gold organic lines are floating across the surface in paint. The south half of the porte-cochere is covered with six recessed rectangular areas. Within the giant coffering a field of polished metal squares form a tiled field bordered with incandescent bulbs. In each of the corner intersections a sculpted glass cover, hold a single incandescent bulbs. Each field holds forty or so of these bulbs and their coverings. Two identical pylons flank the courtyard. One of them is on the south side of Tropicana avenue facing east /west, while the other faces north/south on the east side of the street. The pylon is essentially a giant double-sided rectangle with a top section that angles back into space on either side to meet at a peak. The result is a small roof like peak at the top of the sign supporting text on its face. The text however is standing up horizontally at a 90-degree angle. Besides the text logo at the top, the sign possesses an internally lit message cabinet on the bottom of the face, a small LED message center, and another backlit cabinet with a color advertisement for Follies Berger. The message center at the bottom is white plastic with vinyl lettering. The small message center is flanked by three steel poles, the height of the sign and finished to look like bamboo. The horizontal line created by the top edge of the sign is also lined with this false bamboo. The channel lettering at the top are polished metallic, shallow channel letters, which extend in depth all the way back to the face of the roof like form. The faces are filled with incandescent bulbs and bordered in neon. The sides of the sign are treated with a vertical bull nose like shape which runs vertically up the width of the sign. It is pointed wit ha triangular shape on both ends. The shape begins flush with the triangular peak of the signs profile and ends with its point approximately halfway down the height of the bottom message center. The bull nose is faceted with three faces. At the triangular tips, the three faces appear to make the space retain a jewel like shape. The middle face is laden with incandescent bulbs. The rest of the width of the sign is also finished in polished gold metal. The remaining open space on the faces of the cabinet, as well as exposed pieces of the cabinet, are painted a teal color. A border on incandescent bulbs runs around the entire face of the signage. The only signage present on the towers , is the on the first tower, closest to the corner. Running vertically down the west side of the southwest face of the tower, giant metallic channel letters spell "Tropicana" and are lined on the interiors with a double row of neon. Along the western end of the tower, three, double rows of incandescent bulbs run the entire height of the building. These animate, chasing each other down, simulating a waterfall.
Sign - type of display: Neon; Incandescent; Backlit; LED
Sign - media: Steel; Plastic
Sign - non-neon treatments: Graphics; Paint
Sign animation: Chasing, oscillating
Notes: Pylons: The incandescent bulbs inside the channel letters for the logo oscillate, as well as on the vertical width of the pylon. The raceways around the backlit screen chase each other, but it is a double row of incandescent bulbs that chase in opposite directions to each other. Building: The giant raceways of incandescent bulbs on the northwest corner of the Tropicana's front tower, chase each other from top to bottom, representing a waterfall.
Sign environment: The Tropicana belongs to one of the four major properties which comprise the intersection of Tropicana Ave. and Las Vegas Blvd The corner is occupied by a plaza and pedestrian element that is also seen in the other neighbors in the intersection as well. The towers loom over the plaza, as is accented by kiosks for patron promotions, and other services such as refreshments. The property is a good example of a property which has adapted over the years to fit and compete with the rapid evolution of Las Vegas.
Sign manufacturer: Original fascia design ( letters on building are what remain after remodel) by Heath and Company. Pylons: by YESCO
Sign designer: Original prismatic design was submitted by AD-Art's Jack DuBois ,but produced by Raul Rodriguez for heath and Company.
Sign - date of installation: 1978
Sign - date of redesign/move: The original facade was remodeled, which altered the exterior of the porte- cochere, but the letters remain.
Sign - thematic influences: The theme surrounding the Tropicana is that of the island paradise. References to the theming, that are evident on the exterior, are the shape and style of the text utilized in the various signage as well as those shapes being carried over into the designs other architectural elements. The blue incandescent bulbs that chase each other down the face of the building obviously reference a waterfall. Juxtaposed to the aesthetic, actual water elements have been incorporated into the front facade also. The angular design of the text is reminiscent of prism like faceted fonts is reminiscent many aspects dealing with Las Vegas, but fit more into the theme of the property than Vegas. The prismatic design is also incorporated into the design of the actual pylon also. The edges of the vertical length of the pylon are faceted and the triangular end seen on the fonts can be found elsewhere on the pylon. Not only is this shape evident with the pylon but on the fascia of the neighboring facade. The peaked rooflines of the village like facade also mirror this shape, being accented by the incandescent bulbs that line the edges. The text are reminiscent of something tropical, the shape somehow represents something rustic and wooden, even a tiki-like flavor.
Surveyor: Joshua Cannaday
Survey - date completed: 2002
Sign keywords: Chasing; Oscillating; Pylon; Fascia; Neon; Incandescent; Backlit; Steel; Plastic; Graphics; Paint; LED

As he reveals in this oral history, Roger Thomas is, among many other things, a son, a father, a brother, a husband, a student, an artist, a visionary, and a philanthropist. As the second son of Peggy and E. Parry Thomas’s five children, Roger was raised a Mormon child of privilege and civic responsibility. The banking family summered in Newport Beach, wintered in Sun Valley, and taught their children by words and deeds that it is not up for debate if you will be involved in your community; the only question is how you will apply your talents and resources to benefit your community. Roger absorbed the lessons well. As a child who struggled in school but excelled in art, he attended his last two years of high school at Interlochen Arts Academy, graduating in 1969, finally finding himself “in an environment where what I did had currency.” From there he earned his BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Studio Degree from Tufts University before returning to Las Vegas and eventually joining Steve Wynn’s team in 1981. As Executive Vice President of Design for Wynn Design & Development, he is the man in whom Steve Wynn places his trust to make real at each Wynn property the Wynn design philosophy: aim for a constituency of highly sophisticated, well-traveled, very educated people and give them a reality, a now, that is so fetching, so alluring they wish to be no place else. As he was mentored by his father and Steve Wynn, he too is mentoring those who will follow him. At Wynn, the next generation will carry forward the Wynn idea of evoca-texture, of creating “moments of experiential emotion that result in a memory so captivating and so unique that if you want to repeat that you have to come back.” At home, he collaborates with his daughter on a children’s book that has the potential to become a series; she is the illustrator, while he provides the words. Roger Thomas sat for this interview five days after his father, E. Parry Thomas, passed away in Idaho. Instead of postponing the interview to a more convenient time, Roger kept the appointment and explained, “This is for UNLV. If I’d cancelled my father would have killed me.”

Las Vegas tourists who stop to admire the Mirage volcano, the Bellagio conservatory, the Wynn Las Vegas mountain, the Encore gardens, and the iconic Welcome to Las Vegas sign’s surroundings on the Las Vegas Strip likely do not realize that in each case they have sampled a unique landscape environment conceived by Don Brinkerhoff of Lifescapes International, Newport Beach, California. It is for producing work of this caliber that in 2016 the American Gaming Association selected Brinkerhoff to be the first designer inducted into the Gaming Hall of Fame. In this interview, the Los Angeles native and son of a working-class father and an artist/schoolteacher mother, explains how he spent his youth in an owner-built house in the modest suburb of El Monte, where he tended the family truck garden. Despite earning his degree in ornamental horticulture at California Polytechnic (Cal Poly), Don felt unschooled in the arts because the small school did not teach them. To fill that educational gap, Don took his wife and four children to Europe for two years, where he affiliated with the American Academy in Rome and worked for TAC (The Architects' Collaborative) in Greece among other adventures. The family spent another six months in Hawaii, where the children attended school and Don worked with a local landscape architect. The family’s unusual work, school, and travel experience more than completed Don’s arts education and shaped his world view and that of his daughter Julie in countless ways that came to silently benefit the Las Vegas built environment. Upon returning to California in 1968, Brinkerhoff opened his Orange County office, and Lifescapes International became the “go-to” firm to create water features for condominium projects. This work led to his first hotel-casino project at a Sun City golf course condominium project in South Africa, which in turn led to a telephone call from architect Joel Bergman inviting him to become one of three candidate landscape architects to work with Steve Wynn on what would become The Mirage hotel-casino in Las Vegas. Here, Brinkerhoff speaks to his design philosophy as ninety percent problem-solving and ten percent inspiration even as he describes organizing the signature tree for The Mirage, building the Mirage volcano, taking the idea for Bellagio’s conservatory from the DuPont family’s Longwood Gardens, of creating faux banyans in the Mirage atrium, of creating the model for the Las Vegas Strip median, and of building the mountain on Las Vegas Boulevard in front of Wynn Las Vegas to conceal the Cloud at the Fashion Show Mall. While the fortunes of Lifescapes International continue to grow and succeed worldwide, both Don and Julie credit Steve Wynn and their Las Vegas work: “Las Vegas has totally changed our lives.”

Chemist, mathematician, and health physicist Billy Paul Smith donates time to tutor young people in hopes of attracting more youth into the fields of math and science. Born in 1942 and schooled in segregated black schools in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Texarkana, Texas, he graduated from high school at age fifteen and enrolled at Prairie View A&M University, where he trained with the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) and earned his Bachelor’s degree in chemistry and in 1964 his Master’s degrees in chemistry and math. Most young U.S. Army officers in 1964 went to Vietnam, but Billy’s math and science background steered him to the Army Chemical Corps, where he was quickly selected to join a new team. The team was to develop responses to nuclear weapon accidents and worked under the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the same time, Billy completed the Weapons Ordinance Army course on classified information relating to the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal. In this interview, Billy talks about his service with DASA and his subsequent twenty-seven years working at the Nevada Test Site in a variety of positions with Reynolds Electrical and Engineering Company, Inc. (REECo), a company that had “percentagewise more blacks in management positions than any other [Las Vegas] company.” He experienced the quiet racism of Las Vegas residential segregation when he tried to purchase a house in a neighborhood he liked and the unexpected kindness of the REECo general manager, Ron Keen, who made sure the Smith family could live where they wanted to live. He talks about Area 51 and explains underground testing activity and offers the scientific and ecological reasons why scientists deemed Yucca Mountain safe to store nuclear waste. After retiring at fifty-two, Billy and a colleague formed an independent instrumentation company, which, from 1995–2005 provided and calibrated radiological measurement and detection instruments for the decommissioning and closure of the Rocky Flats nuclear plant in Golden, Colorado. During that time, Billy rented an apartment in Boulder, but he and Jackie maintained their Las Vegas home, where they still reside. Billy shares memories of places he and his wife used to enjoy on the Westside and tells of their longtime friends in the black community. He also talks about developing his philosophy of philanthropy through Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and discusses becoming a member of the Knowledge Fund Advisory Council for the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) and the advisory council for the Nevada System of Higher Education.

When Bruce Woodbury, native Las Vegan, attorney, and former county commissioner, looks back on growing up, he immediately says: My first memory of a house here in Las Vegas was in the John S. Park area. The Woodbuiy family lived in two houses in the neighborhood and attended only two schools, John S. Park Elementaiy and Las Vegas High School. Bruce's recollections begin in the 1940s, when they lived on the edge of town. Bruce has what he calls a "nostalgic yearning for the old Las Vegas, even though today it's an exciting, vibrant community in many ways." And during this oral history interview, he recalls the safe feeling of the times—unlocked doors and children allowed to roam more freely than today. The Strip was a "separate world" where kids like himself might go to a show occasionally with their parents, celebrate a prom dance or, as he did, get a part-time job. One of Bruce's jobs included being a busboy at the Flamingo Hotel & Casino where he confesses to learning and

Dr. Fiona Kelley was born and raised in Connecticut. Her parents were both teachers (though her mother quit teaching to raise their two daughters), and Fiona recalls the European vacations the family took every summer, exploring castles and enjoying picnic lunches. Fiona was educated at Greenwich Academy in Connecticut and Bard College (dance major with art history minor) in New York. She mentions dancing in Acapulco and California and then auditioning and being hired as a cover dancer for Hallelujah Hollywood! at the MGM in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, she had also become licensed in massage and states that as she was making the transition from dancing to production of dance, she and her husband were invited to China. While in China, Dr. Kelley recalls visiting a hospital which specialized in the treatment of AIDS through acupuncture. This led to a decision to learn Oriental medicine, which she pursued once she returned to the United States. She shares many details of her studies