Nevada

Nevada's nickname dates to 1859, when miners found the Comstock Lode under what became Virginia City, a major silver strike. Nevada was admitted on October 31, 1864, in the middle of the Civil War and eight days before the presidential election, which is why the state flag still carries the words 'Battle Born.' Its constitution went to Washington by telegraph, at the time the most expensive dispatch on record.

The neon came later. The 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas' sign was designed by Betty Willis of Western Neon and installed in 1959: a 25-foot stretched diamond topped with a red eight-pointed star, with white neon circles across the top as a nod to silver dollars. Willis thought of it as a gift to the city and wanted it left in the public domain.

The poster splits the state in two. At left the sign glows above a row of casino signs, with a cowboy in a wide-brimmed hat strumming a guitar beside his horse in the foreground. At right a chestnut horse stands on a rock ledge above red desert, a tall cactus beside it and a flat-topped butte glowing in an orange and violet sky. Along the bottom runs 'From glittering lights to desert nights.'