>https://special.library.unlv.edu/ark:/62930/d1kc7k ~ PDF
>https://special.library.unlv.edu/ark:/62930/d1qr4p322 ~ Image
https://vintagelasvegas.com/post/189337408134/red-barn
Red Barn, 1978
Built in the late 50s as an antique store at 1317 Bond Rd (Tropicana Ave), it was converted into a cocktail lounge by new owners in the early 60s, and operated as one of Las Vegas’ best-known gay bars. From ‘72 to its closing in Mar. ‘88 it was leased and operated by Albert “Bert” Hood.
Hood: The Organization [Mob] kept us in the boondocks. My Red Barn was the boondocks. ‘Stay away from us and we’ll stay away from you.’ It was that simple.
Dennis McBride: The Red Barn sign. Did you buy that sign, did you bring it in, or was it there before?
Hood: It was there before, in those days it was Young Electric Sign Company. The major owner was a personal good friend of mine. He was gay. They did all the signs on the Strip. I certainly won’t mention his name. In the early '70s that was a lot of money when you got a $680 bill to have that simple, little old sign [repaired]. Kids walking home from their [school] buses out there would throw rocks at the sign because all the Red Barn parking lot was rocks. They would throw rocks and break all our neon. Finally we decided that we don’t really need that sign. Everybody knows what the bar is. It’s now in the archive, or whadda you call it. The graveyard. Somewhere over there.
The Red Barn sign was one of the first rescues by the Allied Arts Council in the late 80s for a proposed neon park. The sign is now with the Neon Museum.
Sources: Historic Building Collection (PH-00345), UNLV Special Collections. Interview with Albert Hood, 6/16/98, UNLV Oral History Collection; The Light Savers, T.R. Witcher, 7/21/2011.