Wendover Will is a sign created for the

Stateline Casino Stateline Hotel and Casino was located in West Wendover straddling the Nevada/Utah border. History The owner of Stateline Casino was William "Bill" Smith, who started his business in 1926 as a service station. In 1931 when gambling was legali ...

West Wendover, Nevada West Wendover is a small city in Elko County, Nevada, United States. The population was 4,410 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Elko micropolitan area. West Wendover is located on the eastern border of Nevada and the western edge of the Gre ...

in 1952. It is now a landmark for the town of West Wendover.Richard Menzies
"When There's a Will, There's a Wendover: Nevada's Neon Colossus Winks Once Again
. ''American Heritage'', June/July 2006.

History

Pat Denner Pat Denner (1924 – September 25, 2011) was the designer of Vegas Vic. Denner was raised in Salt Lake City, and studied commercial drawining and design at the Pratt Institute in New York City. In 1951, the Young Electric Sign Company in ...

was commissioned to design the sign for the

in 1952. Denner had just completed the

Vegas Vic Vegas Vic is a neon sign portraying a cowboy which was erected on the exterior of The Pioneer Club in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA in 1951. The sign was a departure in graphic design from typeface based neon signs, to the friendly and welcoming human fo ...

sign that was erected in 1951. The sign was constructed by The Young Electric Sign Company. Wendover Will was named after the town of Wendover and William Smith, who founded the Stateline Casino. The sign was intended to draw travelers in from US Highways 40 and 50, later known as

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from downtown San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one o ...

. The sign includes of

neon Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...

tubing. When driving east on Interstate 80 a caption under the sign reads, "This is the place," apparently in homage to Brigham Young. When driving west the caption reads, "Where the West begins". When the Stateline Casino changed ownership, the sign was donated to Wendover. The town spent approximately $200,000 to restore the sign; the restoration was done by The Young Electric Sign Company. Wendover Will was moved to Wendover Boulevard in the town's center and a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on June 9, 2005. Wendover Will is a Registered Trademark of the City of West Wendover. Many locals refer to him simply as “the cowboy”.

Recognition

When the town of West Wendover was incorporated in 1991, the sign was included on the city's seal. Wendover Will was included in the ''

Guinness Book of Records ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

'' as the "World's Largest Mechanical Cowboy".

References

{{Coord, 40.740196, -114.072911, type:landmark_region:US-NV, display=title Landmarks in Nevada Individual signs in the United States West Wendover, Nevada 1952 establishments in Nevada

History

Recognition

See also

References