How many of these iconic, retro neon signs do you recognize from across Alabama?

Alabama cities may not have the glitz and glare of Times Square or Las Vegas but that doesn’t mean we can’t rock a cool neon sign when one is called for. Some in Alabama are easily recognizable, such as Penny the Dog in Birmingham and the Moon Winx Lodge in Tuscaloosa.

I’ve always loved retro neon signs so on a recent trip to Las Vegas, I made the Neon Sign Museum my first stop. It was a fascinating place with massive signs from hotels and casinos that had been discarded. There was a massive sign from the defunct Moulin Rouge Hotel, an 82-foot-tall Hard Rock Café guitar and an adorable duck – about 18 feet high – from Tom Duck’s Ugly Duckling Car Sales.

This massive sign on display at the Neon Sign Museum in Las Vegas comes from the Moulin Rouge Hotel that was built in the 1950s.Kelly Kazek

It’s not surprising that my recent searches for interesting Alabama photos turned up some great shots of neon signs through the years so, of course, I created a collection.

See the photos in the gallery at the top of this story. How many do you recognize?

A brief history of neon

In 1898, British chemists named William Ramsay and Morris Travers were the first to discover neon by liquifying air and capturing the resulting gases. About a dozen years later, French engineer Georges Claude invented neon signage, according to a history on the Neon Sign Museum blog.

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“Inspired by Heinrich Geissler’s ‘Geissler tubes,’ Georges Claude realized that passing electrical current through rarefied gas in a tube would create a neon glowing discharge which could have a striking visual effect,” the blog article said. “After this discovery, he first unveiled his invention at the Paris Motor Show in 1910.”

Claude patented the idea and then started a business, Claude Neon Signs, selling neon signs.

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The very first business to use a neon sign is thought to be a Parisian hair salon called Palais Coiffeur in 1912. For a time, neon stayed across the ocean; it wasn’t used in the U.S. until the 1920s, the blog said.

“Earle C. Anthony is believed to be the first US business owner to use neon signage – in 1923, he ordered two signs reading ‘Packard’ to be used by two car dealerships in Los Angeles. The first neon sign was installed in New York’s Times Square om 1924 and in Las Vegas in 1928.

Neon remained popular through the 1960s when LED lights were invented. Popularity has waxed and waned since then but neon has seen a resurgence in the past decade.