Like free drinks and free parking, another Las Vegas landmark has slid into history.
Last week, the neon cowgirl Vegas Vickie, a Fremont Street icon for better than three decades, was dismantled to make way for a new resort.
The sign stood above a shuttered strip club called Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch, which owner Derek Stevens is transforming into a casino and hotel encompassing the old Las Vegas Club, the Glitter Gulch site and Mermaid’s casino.
Stevens, who owns Downtown’s D Las Vegas and Golden Gate casinos, acquired the Las Vegas Club in August 2015, then picked up the building holding the Mermaids and La Bayou casinos as well as the Topless Girls of Glitter Gulch in April 2016. Mermaids, La Bayou and the Glitter Gulch closed in June 2016.
“When we purchased the Las Vegas Club, we knew then we wanted to look at a larger footprint,” Stevens said at the time of the purchase. “Now that we’ve done this transaction, it completely changes the scope of what the project could become. I’m going to need a little time with my team to start thinking through what this project will look like.”
Vegas Vickie was the brainchild of the late Bob Stupak, who had it erected over a casino he owned at the Glitter Gulch site to match the famed cigarette-brandishing Vegas Vic, which still stands over the former Pioneer Club. Originally christened Sassy Sally the sign was created in 1980 by Ad Art’s Jack Dubois and Charles Barnard.
Stevens did not say what he was planning to do with her except to say, in a press release, that he is searching for “the best home possible.”
