A crane hauls a piece of the old Stardust sign into the "Neon Boneyard" last week. The Neon Museum received final approval last week from the city of Las Vegas to build the museum on the lot, but it won't open until 2009 as officials work to raise money for the project. Photos by Samantha Clemens. Victor Ortiz helps place an "S" from the Stardust marquee inside the "Neon Boneyard" in downtown Las Vegas.

Propped up along a fenced-in lot on Las Vegas Boulevard is the history of Las Vegas, written larger than life in steel and neon.

The Stardust mushroom cloud sign lies in pieces. The silver slipper that twirled atop the casino of the same name is flat on the ground. The graceful La Concha Motel lobby rests on dirt in eight concrete pieces and looks like anything but a swooping icon of architecture.

For now, the best reminders of Las Vegas' native art form are stored in the "Neon Boneyard." It's three acres of desert filled by unplugged neon reminiscent of a tired stripper in the harsh light of day without her makeup.

But most of the pieces are in place to turn the boneyard into the Neon Museum, where the signs will be on display for locals and tourists hungry for nostalgia.

All that's missing is the money.

The Neon Museum received final approval last week from the city of Las Vegas to build the facility on land leased from the city on top of its current Neon Boneyard.

The museum won't open until 2009, though, as officials scramble to raise $1 million, said Nancy Deaner, president of the board for the museum, a nonprofit that receives grants from preservation and tourism organizations.

"If we had the money, we could start tomorrow," she said.

Right now, the dozens of signs in neon are stored in lots surrounded by a chain-link fence and barbed wire. There's no electricity, the signs are missing bulbs, paint is peeling and rust is showing in places.

The La Concha, sewn back together, would serve as the museum's welcome center. A building behind it would be for offices and restrooms.

Then come the signs, which would require additional money to restore.

But officials believe that once the museum is open, they can raise the money necessary to start repairing, restoring and maintaining the neon signs.

The pieces are uniquely Las Vegas and people are eager to see them, Deaner said.

"People call here from all over the world," she said of tourists wanting to get a view of the boneyard. "You hear people say it's a surreal, amazing experience."

Right now, the boneyard, at a location that officials like to keep quiet because of problems with vandalism, is open only by appointment.

On a recent morning, as more pieces of the giant Stardust sign were hauled in by a sign company, the ghosts of Las Vegas past haunted the lot.

"It's unglamorous glamour," said Dan Romano, curator of the Neon Boneyard.

He looks for the colors and the animation in lights of the signs. He fell in love with them when, as a Southern California boy, he would come with his parents and siblings to Las Vegas.

To some, these signs might symbolize Las Vegas kitsch, but to aficionados, they're art. Think a Liberace outfit designed by Andy Warhol.

"Neon is our native art form," Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said. "Like jazz is to New Orleans, neon is to Las Vegas."

Since the late 1980s, a group of dedicated volunteers has scrambled to save the signs. Some hotels, such as the Sands and the Dunes, have been imploded with little left but pictures to remember them by.

"We're literally racing the wrecking ball," Deaner said.

The group already has put up and restored neon signs including the Hacienda rider at Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street. But the museum would be the key attraction, Deaner said.

Many of the pieces come from Young Electric Sign Company, or Yesco, she said.

The company had saved them in its own boneyard for some years, though that doesn't mean that the artisans who made them recognized their historic value or knew they had art on their hands.

Steve Weeks, a longtime employee of Yesco in Las Vegas, said the company had a large lot of land where old signs were stored, possibly to revamp or resell them, or because they had other things to do than go to the landfill.

"It was more laziness than anything," he said. "It was so much easier to bring it here than go to the dump."

After movie production companies wanted to shoot at the boneyard, Yesco realized there was an interest in the signs. When the Neon Museum secured the location, on land it leased from the city of Las Vegas, Yesco donated its most historic old signs.

Over time, neon has become less necessary to attract attention. Instead it's the architecture, like the Luxor pyramid or the towering Wynn, that is used to draw motorists, Deaner and Weeks said.

Weeks said Steve Wynn "thinks it's gaudy. He thinks it's low-class to have exposed neon. That's his prerogative."

But the neon industry still is thriving. For one thing, 80,000 feet of it is used on the inside of Wynn as lighting. Neon easily can be dimmed to the right brightness, it can match colors very easily, and it's energy efficient, Weeks said.

Also, the city of Las Vegas requires 75 percent of all signs along Las Vegas Boulevard to be neon, animated or a combination, said Yorgo Kagafas, the city's urban design coordinator.

The museum would be a great tribute, Weeks said.

"It's a chance for us to save our history. I love our old signs. When you grew up with them, they're friends."