Young Electric Sign Company

Young Electric Sign Company (YESCO) is a privately owned manufacturer of electric signs based in Salt Lake City. The company was founded by Thomas Young in 1920 and today has divisions and branches in 10 western states, as well as in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. YESCO offers a comprehensive range of services for electronic signs, including design, fabrication, installation and ongoing maintenance.

Many notable sign projects have been produced by YESCO. These include the NBC Experience globe in New York City, the historic El Capitan Theatre and Wax Museum marquees in Hollywood, the most recent incarnation of the Reno Arch and numerous icons in Las Vegas, such as Vegas Vic, the Fremont Street Experience, the Astrolabe in The Venetian and the recent Wynn Las Vegas resort sign.

History

The company was created by Thomas Young on March 20, 1920.^[1] The young sign painter had left England just a decade earlier to immigrate with his family to Ogden, Utah. In the beginning, his shop specialized in coffin plates, gold leaf window lettering, lighted signs and painted advertisements. As the science of lighting and sign-making advanced, so did Tom Young’s signs.

In 1933, YESCO opened a branch office in the Apache Hotel in Las Vegas. The company erected the first neon sign in Las Vegas for the Boulder Club.^[2]

Young Electric Sign Company – which became known by its acronym “YESCO” – soon became recognized as a leader in the sign industry, tackling large and complex sign projects. For example, it erected the first neon spectacular sign in Las Vegas for the Boulder Club in the late ’30s, and in 1995 it completed the four-block-long Fremont Street Experience canopy in Las Vegas.

YESCO continues to design, build, install and maintain signs and interior displays in areas including the application of light-emitting diode (LED) technology to signs. In recent years, YESCO has built a substantial outdoor digital media (billboard) division of its business.^[3]

The Boneyard

Next to the Las Vegas branch, there is a lot of land in which any old, unused signs are put. YESCO's Las Vegas Boneyard has been used in numerous movies, television shows and music videos.^{[citation needed]}

Landmark Signs

The NBC Experience Store Globe

NBC ushered in the millennium with a new YESCO “message globe” in its NBC Experience store, located at Rockefeller Center in New York City. The electronic sign quickly became recognized as one of the most distinctive electronic displays in the world.

From the outside of the building, it looks like a brilliant illuminated globe. The 35’-diameter hemisphere is covered with thousands of full-color LEDs. Colorful video and special effects, along with animations provided by YESCO’s media services group, are displayed on the globe’s surface, telling the NBC story. When it was first turned on, it literally stopped traffic on West 49th Street.^{[citation needed]}

Vegas Vic

Main article: Vegas Vic

Perhaps the world’s most recognized electronic sign,^{[citation needed]} Vegas Vic was designed by and built by YESCO. Upon its installation in 1951 over the Pioneer Club on historical Fremont Street, the 40'-tall electronic cowboy immediately became Las Vegas’s unofficial greeter.

Wynn Las Vegas

The 135-foot (41 m) tall marquee features a 100-foot (30 m) high, 50-foot (15 m) wide, concave, double-faced LED message center with a first-of-its-kind “moving eraser.” Conceived by Steve Wynn, the massive eraser glides silently and smoothly up and down over the LED message center, appearing to change the graphics as it goes. The eraser weighs 62,000 pounds, and is counterbalanced by a 62,000-pound weight inside the sign.^[4]

The sign uses 4,377,600 LEDs and the eraser is powered by a 300 horsepower (220 kW) motor at its base that runs a gear and cable system. The firm of FTSI engineered the 62,000-pound eraser’s movement, which is capable of speeds up to 10 feet per second (3.0 m/s).^[4]

YESCO's "Bone Yards"

YESCO "boneyard"

More formally known as the Young Electric Sign Company's Neon Sign Graveyard,^[5] or also as the Neon Boneyard, YESCO maintains a storage yard of retired signs in Las Vegas in a fenced lot behind its facility that is not open to the public. The lot is located at 899 Encanto Dr. Las Vegas, Nevada 89101. Many signs can be seen with online map viewing websites. The company has been instrumental in supporting the Neon Museum, which is dedicated to preserving the neon signs and associated artifacts of Las Vegas.^[6] The Neon Museum has now moved many of the signs from YESCO's lot to a new storage facility at the future home of the Neon Museum in Downtown Las Vegas, where they are awaiting restoration.

Some of the retired signs in the boneyard include the sign for the Silver Slipper casino and Aladdin's lamp from the first version of Aladdin Casino. In 2004 the Binions Horseshoe sign was relocated to the boneyard when Harrah's bought the casino. They then sold the casino to MTR Gaming Group that rebranded the casino as Binion's Gambling Hall and Hotel .

The Fremont Street Experience

Main article: Fremont Street Experience

YESCO installed the vaulted canopy arching 90 feet (27 m) above four blocks of Fremont Street.

Services

Custom Signs

YESCO provides businesses of all sizes and types with custom signs and display systems. The company’s services in this area include design, fabrication, installation and ongoing maintenance.

Resorts & Casinos

In 1932 YESCO expanded into the resort and casino industry – just a year after gaming was legalized in Las Vegas – and has played an important role in the resort and casino industry ever since, not only in Las Vegas but throughout regions of the United States and Canada where gaming is found. The company maintains separate manufacturing facilities for interior signs, exterior signs and digital electronics.

Key Individuals

Founder

Born in Sunderland, England, in 1895, Thomas Young was 15 years old when his family emigrated to Ogden, Utah. Hard-working and talented, the boy applied his passion to making signs, becoming a Master Sign Writer. He began by creating wall-lettering and gold-leaf window signs, working for the Electric Service Company and the Redfield-King Sign Company in Ogden.

Young married Elmina Carlisle in 1916. Four years later, in 1920, he founded his own sign company: Thomas Young Sign Company, which specialized in coffin plates, gold window lettering, lighted signs and painted advertisements.

In 1932 Young expanded his business to Las Vegas, and within two years purchased the Ogden Armory for $12,000 to expand production capacity. He also started a branch in Salt Lake City in that year.

Young was elected president of the National Sign Association in 1936, serving for two terms. A year later, in 1937, he moved his family and YESCO headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah, and continued expanding the business.

In 1969 Young turned over the reins of company leadership to his son. Young died two years later.

Designers

Some of YESCO's most prominent signage designers have included:

• Charles Barnard - designer of Vegas Vickie
• Rudy Christomo - designer of the Rio's column
• Dan Edwards - designer of Lucky the Clown of Circus Circus
• Jack Larsen Sr - designer of the Silver Slipper
• Kermit Wayne - designer of the Stardust
• Pat Denner - designer of the Vegas Vic and Wendover Will

References

1. ^ Nevada Contractors' Billboard 2003
2. ^ Nevada Department of Cultural Affairs
3. ^ http://www.signindustry.com/electronic/articles/2009-02-02-LB-Digital_Signage_Ho_staking_out_new_territories.php3
4. ^ ^{a b} http://www.fishertechnical.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=69:the-wynn-hotel-sign&catid=23:theme-parks&Itemid=37
5. ^ PBS
6. ^ a2zlasvegas

External links

• The Neon Museum
• Company home page