This question ran not too long ago, last February, and it's our pleasure to post it again, especially in the cause of peace.
This was a fun -- and illuminating -- answer to nail down.
To start off with, this writer remembers visiting downtown Las Vegas for the first time in the mid-1980s and, somehow, without ever seeing any name for the Neon Cowgirl in print or hearing it spoken, concluding that her name was Sassy Sally. Not too long thereafter, I did see the name, and it was Vegas Vickie, and I remember thinking that I’d been wrong about Sassy Sally and that Vickie made more sense anyway, given that she was obviously the counterpart to Vegas Vic across Fremont Street.
Besides, she was kicking her leg up from a casino called the Golden Goose, while Sassy Sally's was a half-block up the street.
Ever since, even though I've seen her called Sassy Sally many many times, I’ve always believed that the Cowgirl’s name is Vegas Vickie.
That side of Fremont Street between Main and First, by the way, has an interesting history. The Las Vegas Club (now called just Vegas Club) is a long story unto itself, a story for another day.
But the first casino to open at the corner of Fremont and First streets debuted in June 1956. Called the Silver Palace, it was noteworthy for being one of the larger clubs in town, at 16,000 square feet, with 200 slot machines, three dice tables, five 21 tables, one roulette wheel, and keno. The 70-foot V-shaped bar featured such musical groups as the Four Jockers, Dianne Lefti and Her Right Hand Men, and the Al DePauliss Quartet. Most importantly, it was the first two-level joint in Las Vegas and the escalator connecting the casino with the restaurant was the first in southern Nevada. (In one of the Las Vegas Sun articles about it at the time, the escalator was referred to as "motor stairs.")
Later, the Silver Palace became the Carousel, which was featured in the Bond movie Diamonds are Forever. In 1974 it became the Gamblers Hall of Fame. A few years later, it turned into the Sundance West. And in 1981, it was taken over by Herb Pastor, who renamed it Sassy Sally’s.
Herb Pastor had opened the Golden Goose casino, between the Las Vegas Club and Sundance West, in 1974. He also owned the Coin Castle (now La Bayou) across the street, and he eventually took over the Glitter Gulch casino, next to the Golden Goose, which he combined with the Golden Goose and turned them into the Girls of Glitter Gulch topless club in 1991. Sassy Sally’s became Mermaids, known for serving deep-fried Twinkies and Oreos, in 2001.
Meanwhile, in 1980, Ad Art constructed and erected the Neon Cowgirl, attaching it to the Golden Goose. So that gives us our first hint: The cowgirl predates Sally by around a year.
Thus, the Cowgirl would’ve had to already be called Sassy Sally and Herb would’ve had to name his new casino after the sign. And that seemed to us to be so much of a stretch that we tracked down Herb, who now spends most of his time in Thailand (and has a fascinating life story that you can read in his new book Strip Joint Millionaire, available on Amazon), and asked him directly. He filled in some of the historical details, concluding with, "And yes, you're right that folks mistakenly call Vegas Vickie Sassy Sally."
The name Vegas Vickie obviously tied her in with Vegas Vic, the iconic cowboy that had been greeting "pardners" to downtown Las Vegas for decades previously.
During our research, we also found one little mention of Ad Art that read, "Jack Dubois and Charles Barnard, former art directors of Ad Art, designers of iconic signs such Vegas Vickie …" So that corroborates Herb’s declaration.
But that’s only half the tale. What about Sassy Sally?
Again, I initially made this mistake; it was easy, apparently, to assume, based on the proximity of Sassy Sally’s to the Neon Cowgirl. (Of course, simply looking a little more closely, I’d’ve seen that she was half a block away from the eponymous casino and I’ve never, in all my years in Vegas, heard of Vickie/Sally being referred to as Golden or Goose.)
Still, the name "Sassy Sally" seems to have taken on a life of its own -- typical with all the loose information in the Internet age.
Someone somewhere sometime somehow decided that the Cowgirl was originally named Sassy Sally, but her name was changed at some point to Vegas Vickie, and it amazed us to see, in researching this question, how many other people have repeated it since.
For example, Lasvegas2005.com, a website launched for Las Vegas’ centennial, claimed, "Designed by Ad Art, she is named Sassy Sally (from the nightclub just below it). However, in the future she will become better known as the Vegas Vicki."
Of course, this is wrong on two other counts as well: First, the "nightclub" just below it is Girls of Glitter Gulch and, second, Sassy Sally’s was not only down the block, but it became Mermaids fully four years earlier, in 2001.
The usually reliable Nevada magazine, in a story in its May 2008 issue, wrote, "Glitter Gulch’s neon cowgirl was designed by Ad Art and installed in 1980. Sassy Sally underwent the name change to Vegas Vicky as a tribute to the famous Vegas Vic."
And here’s another one we found at agilitynut.com: "Glitter Gulch's neon cowgirl is nicknamed Vegas Vicky, originally named Sassy Sally after the strip joint below her."
And yet another from joebobbriggs.com/Vegasguy: "Sassy Sally underwent a name change to ‘Vegas Vicky’ in a sort of tribute to the most famous sign in Las Vegas, ‘Vegas Vic,’ which still stands a half-block away over the old Pioneer Club, now closed and converted into a souvenir shop."
We even saw the following cutline to a photo of downtown Las Vegas in the November 2007 issue of American Cowboy magazine: "The Fremont Street Experience in blossoming downtown Las Vegas … and ooh-la-la neon cowgirl Sassy Sally, aka the Glitter Gulch Girl." No doubt, the caption writer dreamed up the name "Glitter Gulch Girl" from Girls of Glitter Gulch, the strip club from which Vickie still kicks up her leg.
Anyway, thanks to your question, this issue should forever be put to rest. It won’t be, but at least now it can be.
Oh, one more thing. As you might've noticed above, the Cowgirl’s name has been spelled Vicky, Vicki, and Vickie. Herb Pastor spells it Vickie. And since no one else knows anything for sure, we hereby proclaim that her name will be spelled Vegas "Vickie" forevermore.
