The Top o' the Mint, a lounge with a view over-looking Downtown and, back then you could see all the way to the Strip, was a favorite romantic spot for tourists as well as locals. The Mint also had a beauty salon for its female guests. In 1961, developer Del Webb bought the hotel from Milton Prell. ( Viva Las Vegas: After Hours Architecture, Alan Hess). Alan Hess described the signage as a shooting ribbon of white incandescent bulbs beginning at the bottom of the curve which followed the arc's trajectory until, eighty-two feet off the sidewalk, a sixteen-foot star burst into a neon flame.' The entire facade was covered in rose neon that matched the synthetic auto enamels used on the sheet metal.

Under the sign, petrified wood veneered the walls. The sign was one of the first to exploit the three dimensional sweep of neon on Fremont Street. Boernge and Wayne took the sign design from there. Recalled Harris Sharp, 'They said they wanted an unusual sign that could be seen all up and down Fremont Street.' (interview with Alan Hess) so working with his partner, Walter Zick, they came up with the pylon sign with the curving tail. Zick and Sharp were postwar graduates of USC's School of Architecture where their classmates included Eldon Davis and Louise Armet, the primary proponents of the Goggie style architecture that was popular at the time. According to Alan Hess, the Yesco designers worked with the local architects, Walter Zick and Harris Sharp, on the design of the Mint. The white stripe of lights that raced across the front of the sign and then upward to the heavens to light the starburst at the top made the Mint one of the most photographed icons on Fremont Street.

The famed signage was designed by neon sign designers extraordinare Kermit Wayne and Hermon Boernge of Young Electric Sign Company, From the beginning, iit was an eye-catcher. Lore has it that Prell's wife came up with the name for the new casino/hotel. It was owned, in part, by Milton Prell, who also owned the Sahara Hotel and the Tally Ho on the Strip. The Mint sat on the north side of Fremont Street between First and Second Street.

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