New Home for Vegas’ Lucky Strike Prospector Statues

Posted on: December 3, 2024, 07:55h. 

Last updated on: December 3, 2024, 09:13h.

Corey Levitan Read More
Expertise: Commercial Gaming, Entertainment, Expert Insight, Las Vegas, Restaurants, Las Vegas Myths.

The prospects once again look great for the former Lucky Strike prospectors. The two 12-foot tall, fiberglass statutes, which gained fame in the 1950s as part of the rooftop sign of the Lucky Strike Club on Fremont Street, now reside in Goodsprings. The small Nevada town, 40 miles southwest of Las Vegas, enjoys worldwide fame because many of its citizens and landmarks star in the popular video game “Fallout: New Vegas.”

“Fallout: New Vegas” fans pose for a photo in front of one of the two former Lucky Strike miner statues during the annual Fallout Fan Celebration at the Pioneer Saloon in Goodsprings, Nev. on Nov. 16, 2024.  (Image: YouTube/@Wonderhussy Adventures)

How the prospectors got to their current home is a story that includes surviving a demolition, three casino closures, a probable car accident, decades of desert sun and wind, and a fire.

The statues were moved this summer from Terrible’s Casino in Jean, Nev., which was demolished in January. The developer who purchased the casino hotel donated them to the Goodsprings Historical Society.

“I offered to house one of the statues when some of the other display site options fell through,” Stephen Staats, owner of the Pioneer Saloon, told Casino. org. “I felt it was a wonderful way to welcome visitors to Goodsprings, which was originally a mining town, and the Pioneer Saloon is at the front of the town.”

Golden Boys

The prospectors were designed by noted wax artist Katherine Stubergh. Referred to as “America’s Madame Tussaud,” her work can be seen in the classic films “Gone with the Wind” (1939) and “House of Wax” (1953).

They were manufactured out of fiberglass by the YESCO sign company in their Salt Lake City factory, and installed on the sign advertising the Lucky Strike Club casino in 1954. In its copyright application, YESCO referred to both statues as “Dan the Miner,” though no one else referred to either statue by that name.

When the sign was turned on at night, the prospectors, equipped with their own electrical feeds, jiggled their pans, which brimmed with lighted “gold,” from side to side.

The twin gold prospector statues kneel above the Lucky Strike Club, at 117 Fremont St. in downtown Las Vegas, in 1955. (Image: Hulton Archive via Vintage Vegas)

In 1963, the property became just the Lucky Casino, and the prospectors were placed in storage. Five years later, the neighboring Golden Nugget bought and demolished the property as part of a block-long expansion.

One of the statues mines for photo ops at the short-lived Fort Lucinda ghost town theme park near the Hoover Dam. (Image: over50vegas.com)

But the statues were safe. Since 1964, they had been serving as photo ops in front of the Fort Lucinda Casino. That was part of a ghost town theme park created as an expansion of the Gold Strike Hotel and Casino (today’s Hoover Dam Lodge). The town featured buildings relocated from the New Frontier casino’s Old West village.

The theme park never caught on, and the Fort Lucinda Casino reverted to the Gold Strike name in 1968. But that was a good day for the prospectors, who were placed back-to-back beneath the marquee of its new roadside sign.

It was to be their happy home for the next 30 years.

When an accidental fire gutted the Gold Strike in 1998, its owners decided to relocate the miners to their other Gold Strike casino located 30 miles south of the Las Vegas Strip in Jean, Nev.

There they kneeled for another 26 years, the victims of vandalism, extreme sun-bleaching, and an apparent vehicular mishap that damaged one of their feet.

Gold Dust

The two miners (look on the other side of the sign for the other one) greeted visitors to the God Strike — later Terrible’s — for 26 years. (Image: weirdnv.com)

The Gold Strike was acquired in 1995 by the company that became MGM Resorts. In 2015, it was sold again to the Herbst family, which rebranded it Terrible’s, the same strange name used by the family’s local convenience stores and gas stations.

Herbst closed the former Gold Strike during the pandemic and never reopened it. In 2022, it was sold for $44.7M to a Reno-based real estate company that plans to build a 2.84-million square-foot industrial center on the site. It was Tolles Development that donated the statues to the Goodsprings Historical Society.

As for the other prospector statue, it’s in temporary storage, Staats said.

“We may display the second one when some construction at the property is complete,” he said.