The fact that no decays of the Z boson to the Higgs were observed at LEP immediately implies that the Higgs boson, if it existed, must be heavier than the Z boson (~ 91 GeV/ c). Subsequently, with each successive energy upgrade of the LEP, hope re-emerged that discovery of the Higgs was just around the corner. Just prior to the planned shut down of LEP in 2000, few events that resemble a Higgs boson with a mass of ~ 115 GeV/ c were observed. This led to extension of the final LEP run by a few months. But in the end the data was inconclusive and insufficient to justify another run after the winter break and the difficult decision was made to shut down and dismantle LEP to make room for the new Large Hadron Collider in November 2000. The inconclusive results of the direct search for the Higgs boson at LEP resulted in a final lower bound of the Higgs mass 114.4 GeV/ c at the 95% confidence level.