The neon sign spanning Virginia Street has been photographed ten thousand times, usually by people who just got off Interstate 80 and wanted proof they were somewhere. That’s fine. But the arch — and the two-block stretch of downtown it anchors — rewards a slower look than most visitors bother to give it.
The current arch is actually the fourth version. The original went up in 1926 to celebrate the completion of the Lincoln Highway. The city tore it down, rebuilt it, tore it down again, and put up the current one in 1987, then upgraded the LED lighting in 2009. Most people don’t know any of that. They see “The Biggest Little City in the World” in red neon and take a picture. But if you walk the corridor on a Tuesday morning, before the tourists and the bachelor parties arrive, the block tells a more complicated story about what Reno has been and what it’s trying to become.
Stand on the arch side and look south. The empty lot on the east side of Virginia near the river is where the Mapes Hotel stood from 1947 until the city imploded it in 2000. It was the first high-rise hotel-casino in the country. Frank Sinatra performed there. So did Nat King Cole and Bob Hope. The city spent years arguing about what to do with the building, couldn’t agree, and eventually just blew it up. The lot has been a wound in the downtown streetscape ever since. There are plans, as there always are.
The arch itself is free to walk under, obviously. The real reason to spend time here is to use it as an orientation point for the small cluster of things within easy walking distance that don’t get enough attention. The Riverwalk District starts just a few blocks south. The Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts — a 1967 building with a copper roof and genuinely good acoustics — sits just off the corridor and runs a full season of symphony, opera, and touring shows, with tickets that often run cheaper than comparable venues in Sacramento or San Francisco.
First Friday events draw local artists and vendors to nearby streets once a month, and the downtown Farmers Market runs on Wednesdays and Saturdays from roughly May through October in the area around City Plaza. Neither costs anything to attend.
The best time to see the arch itself is dusk, when the neon kicks on against a sky that’s still holding some color. Winter is underrated — the crowds are thin, the light is low and sharp, and the mountains to the south are usually carrying snow. Parking downtown is metered during the day and free after six on most blocks; the city-run garages off Commercial Row are cheap and rarely full except during big casino events.
If you’re coming from out of town and want one image that explains what Reno has always believed about itself — outsized ambition packaged in a compact, slightly scruffy downtown — the arch is it. Just don’t stop at the photograph. Walk the block. Read the historical markers. Find the Mapes lot and think about what it means that it’s still empty after twenty-five years. The city is more interesting when you ask it questions.
