The building has been around for 45 or so years and functional for the first 30 or so of those years.  While in business, it had a multitude of names and/or chain brandings.  "Northern Lights Inn" is the name which stuck more often throughout its operational history.

Mike Cusack bought it in the mid or late 1990s and also bought the Polaris Building in Fairbanks, so he had the idea to start a chain called Northern Lights Hotels.  He was in way over his head (bad investments plus personal problems) and pretty much abandoned both buildings after going bankrupt.  That's why the sign is still there.

Speaking of the Polaris, no one in Fairbanks that I know of calls it the Northern Lights Hotel but rather the Polaris Building.  Marc Marlow bought that structure and has faced years worth of battles with the City of Fairbanks very similar to this.