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San Luis Obispo Night Lights The night belongs to neon. The bright lights and warm colors of neon signs draw grownups like fireflies attract children with Mason jars. Neon is a gaseous element that ionizes and glows red when enclosed in a glass tube and charged with an electric current. Other colors are produced by adding other gases, or by coating the inside of the tube with phosphorescent materials. British scientists identified Neon in 1898. Georges Claude is usually credited with displaying the first neon tubes at the Parisian Exposition in 1910. He brought neon signs to the United States in 1923. Here they quickly caught on as a dramatic advertising medium, especially at automobile dealerships, bars and restaurants, hotels, motels, and movie theaters. Neon signage perfectly complemented then popular Art Deco and Art Moderne design. San Luis Obispo once glowed with neon, beckoning residents and travelers alike. Most of the old signs are gone. Of the ones that remain, a few are inoperative. This photo essay highlights
some of the neon signs that still survive, relics of an era when
nighttime SLO radiated neon exuberance. SOURCE: "The History of
Neon Signs,"
Inventors.about.com Click on any of the photos below to see a larger and, in some cases, the opposite (day or night) image.
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