Posted on: June 5, 2026, 10:12h.
Last updated on: June 5, 2026, 10:12h.
EDITOR’S NOTE: “Vegas Myths Busted” features new entries every Monday, along with a bonus Flashback Friday edition. Today’s entry in our ongoing series first appeared on April 22, 2024.
Vegas Vickie, the glamorous neon counterpart to Vegas Vic, has been the subject of a scandalous misconception regarding her early career—one that suggests she may have performed under a different name, as many entertainers do.
In fact, there are two misconceptions to clarify. Vickie was not perched atop a strip club, as many believe. Glitter Gulch transitioned into a strip club in 1991, but Vickie had no ties to that change.
When Vickie was first installed in September 1980, Glitter Gulch was still a casino. Her name was always Vickie, as owner Bob Stupak envisioned her as the female counterpart to Vegas Vic.
Vic—who was installed in 1951, at a time when he waved his arm and greeted passersby with “Howdy Podner!”—brought significant attention and business to the Pioneer Club, far exceeding what Stupak had anticipated for his simpler establishment.
Stupak enlisted the talent of Charles Barnard from Ad Art in Stockton, California, to design Vickie.
In a 2017 interview with the Stockton Record, Barnard recalled Stupak expressing, “I’d like to install a cowgirl sign.” Unlike Vic, who greeted with a wave, Barnard proposed, “I want her to be kicking.”
Initially, Barnard envisioned a pin-up girl inspired by George Petty’s work. The alluring “Petty Girls” were famously incorporated into WWII warplane nose art.
However, Barnard explained to the newspaper that obtaining the rights was time-consuming, so he decided to start sketching a cowgirl seated on a large gold nugget instead.
Barnard confessed that Vickie was not inspired by his wife, Ellie, who only remarked that he “went a bit overboard on the bosom” in his design.
Shortly after opening, Stupak sold Glitter Gulch to Herb Pastor, who had founded the nearby Golden Goose Casino. In 1991, Pastor merged the two venues into a strip club dubbed the Girls of Glitter Gulch.
Though Vickie remained atop, her kicking feature was no longer operational. That mechanism had broken about six months after the sign’s installation, but Stupak did not see fit to allow his star attraction any downtime.
Decoding the Myths
The confusion surrounding the identity of the neon cowgirl arose in 1981, when Pastor opened an adjacent casino to Glitter Gulch.
Sassy Sally’s occupied the location formerly held by establishments like Silver Palace (1956-64), Carousel (1965-74), Gambler’s Hall of Fame (1974-76), and Sundance West (1976-1980), featuring a more prominent sign than Glitter Gulch. The name also included a female reference (Sassy Sally was named after Pastor’s children’s favorite babysitter), leading tourists to mistakenly identify Vickie as Sally.
A 2017 press release concerning the removal of Vegas Vickie erroneously asserted this popular misconception as fact, prompting many reputable outlets to follow suit.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Vickie was “initially named Sassy Sally, after the casino where she stood high over Fremont Street.” It inaccurately added that “later, Sally was renamed Vegas Vickie, in honor of her 1994 ‘marriage’ to the neon cowboy Vegas Vic.”
Sources like Yahoo.com, RoadsideAmerica.com, and Travelandleisure.com also replicated the flawed press release or assumed the publication would be accurate regarding its own city’s history.
As of now, none of these articles have been revised.
What’s Your Sign?
At least the marriage part is accurate. Vic and Vickie were “wed” in a publicity event celebrating the Fremont Street Experience’s establishment in 1994.
In fact, they were married twice.
“I had no idea they were already married,” said Jeff Victor, the former president of the Fremont Street Experience, in an interview with Casino.org. “I thought it would be a fun and original idea.”
Between 2005 and 2007, Victor recounted sending an officiant up in a scissor lift to pronounce them husband and wife once again.
In 2017, Vickie was taken down by downtown casino owner Derek Stevens to pave the way for the demolition of Girls of Glitter Gulch, Mermaids, La Bayou, and the Las Vegas Club to establish his Circa casino resort on the old sites.
Vickie underwent restorative work—please keep this confidential!—at YESCO sign company, and currently resides in the Circa lobby adjacent to a lounge named after her.
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