Fremont East Vintage Motels

The Oasis at Gold Spike features a facade of bright, mismatched colors and a sprawling, open-air courtyard that feels out of place among the vintage neon of downtown. This site began as the Gold Spike Hotel and Casino in nineteen…

The Downtowner Boutique Hotel occupies a mid-century building with a distinctive, low-slung, U-shaped layout that wraps around a central courtyard. It opened in nineteen sixty-four as a motor hotel, designed to catch travelers arriving by…

The Dragon Motel wears a faded, hand-painted sign featuring a serpentine creature that has lost much of its color to the desert sun. It occupies a low-slung, cinder-block structure that dates to the mid-twentieth century, built when…

The Fergusons Downtown motel features a towering neon sign shaped like a stylized cowboy in a bright red vest. Built in nineteen forty-five, it operated as a roadside stop for decades before falling into disrepair. In twenty-fourteen, the…

The Lucky Lady Motel features a jagged, neon-trimmed roofline that cuts against the low-slung concrete block of its mid-century frame. Built in the nineteen fifties, it served the early wave of tourists who arrived by car, hoping to snag a…

The Desert Moon stands out with its jagged, neon-lit roofline that mimics a mountain range against the flat desert horizon. It began as a small roadside motel in nineteen fifty-two, serving travelers driving the long stretch of highway…

The Desert Hills Motel features a neon sign topped with a stylized cactus that glows above the corner of Fremont Street. Built in nineteen fifty-three, this motel served the travelers driving into Las Vegas before the massive resort…

The Blue Angel rises twenty feet above the street, a fiberglass figure clutching a star against the desert sky. She once anchored a mid-century motor court on Fremont Street, welcoming travelers with her serene, illuminated presence. When…