SIGNS OF OUR PAST – In a new fine art photography show, visual artist Edward M. Fielding explores to old neon signs from the old American west.

Livingston, Montana near Yellowstone National Parks northern entrance is a beautiful old historic city with classic well preserved western architecture, funky antique shops, art galleries and eateries.

Livingston is a city and the county seat of Park County, Montana, United States.  Livingston is located in southwestern Montana, on the Yellowstone River, north of Yellowstone National Park. The population was 7,044 at the 2010 census.

One of my favorite things about Livingston is seeing all of the well-preserved old neon signs including old-time, long running restaurants like The Stockman, The Livingston Grille, Dan Bailey‘s Fly Shop and  even Gil’s Got It an old-time souvenir shop which has now been turned in to a fantastic pizza place.

Las Vegas has the Neon Museum and the old Neon Sign Boneyard but Livingston has a great collection of old signs in use in the downtown.

 

The founding of the small historical railroad and ranching town of Livingston, Montana is a direct result of the Northern Pacific Railway (NPR). This site became a centralized point in the Rockies and the NPR’s location for railroad shops to service NPR steam trains before their ascent over the Bozeman Pass, the highest point on the line.

Livingston also became the first gateway town to America’s first national park, Yellowstone National Park. This is to where the NPR began promoting heavily to visitors from the East. The NPR operated a branch line running some fifty miles south through Paradise Valley to, first the Cinnabar station and later to Gardiner, Montana.

 

 

Facts about Neon Signs

• Neon Facts. Neon (Ne) is a colorless, non-metallic, very inert gas with an atomic number of ten. This member of the noble gas classification glows reddish orange in a vacuum tube.
• Neon gets its name from the Greek word “neos,” meaning “new.” 
• The gas was first isolated in 1898 by chemists William Ramsay and Morris Travers, who were busily discovering noble gases left and right by evaporating liquefied air, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry.
• Neon lights are most commonly associated with storefront signs, and use neon gas in hollow glass tubes to produce their famous luminous glow. An electric current is run through the neongas (mixed with a small percentage of argon), which produces a reddish-orange light.
• Many of the signs that we regard as neon signs are not true neon signs at all. This is because neon is only responsible for the bright reddish-orange signs that are so common.
• The first neon sign demonstrated in a modern form in December 1910 by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show.