Gillette Museum Rescues Iconic Signs From Around Wyoming For New Neon Park
When Frontier Auto Museum in Gillette learned the historic Thunderbird Lodge Motel neon sign from Laramie was going to be scrapped, it took a trailer and picked it up. It’ll become part of the museum’s new Neon Park, loaded with vintage and iconic neon signs rescued from around Wyoming. (Courtesy Frontier Auto Museum)
From Cowboy State Daily: Frontier Auto Museum in Gillette has been acquiring iconic, but decrepit, neon signs for years. It’s been restoring them to their former glory, and now is building a permanent place to put them.
The museum has broken ground on its new Neon Park, a home for the towering neon signs from across Wyoming.
When it’s finished, visitors can even spend a night basking in the neon glow as part of a custom-built overnight “man cave” experience.
Here’s the story of the latest — and maybe last — addition to Saginaw’s historic sign park
The Old Saginaw City Historic Sign Park features 22 historic business signs in Saginaw. The Saginaw News/MLive.com
From mlive.com: SAGINAW, MI — A reminder of a Saginaw business closed for two decades now will once again illuminate its old neighborhood.
The sign that once graced The Hut Hamburgs was installed in the Old Saginaw City Historic Sign Park, about one block southwest from the former site of the now-closed restaurant.
Tom Mudd, a preservationist and president of the Saginaw Valley Historic Preservation Society that manages the park, said The Hut Hamburgs sign likely represents the final installation there because of dwindling space capacity.
Drumheller’s mega-popular tourist-luring dinosaur faces extinction. Now, the fight is on to save her
Two people cross a street under a towering model of a T-Rex in Drumheller, Alta., June 7, 2013. (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)
From The Canadian Press: Tyra the Tyrannosaurus, the lovable landmark that towers over the Drumheller skyline in the heart of the Canadian Badlands, is facing an extinction-level event.
The 25-metre-high attraction — billed as the World’s Largest Dinosaur, and the backdrop to hundreds of thousands of tourist photos over a quarter of a century — is set to become history by 2029.
But the fight over her fate may have just begun in this town that sits northeast of Calgary.
Planning Commission votes against historic status for Donny’s Place, one of the city’s oldest queer safe havens
Donny’s Place in September 2024. The city’s Planning Commission on Tuesday voted against establishing the now-closed bar as the city’s first official LGBTQ+ historic landmark. (Historic Review Commission)
From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The Planning Commission on Tuesday voted against establishing Donny’s Place — once a safe haven for the queer community — as the city’s first official LGBTQ+ historic landmark.
The decision — after nearly two hours of public discussion — could fast-track the shuttered bar’s demolition, but leaves the door open for memorializing its history in other ways.
Up for debate Tuesday were both the bar’s role as a longtime anchor of queer life in Pittsburgh and its current condition after a fire tore through its interior late last year.
The Como Hotel Is ‘No Mo’
(Photo courtesy of Save the Como)
From CandysDirt.com: The legendary Como Motel of Richardson, Texas, is, well, no mo. After almost two years of efforts by local community members to find a way to keep this midcentury modern icon as a part of our architectural and cultural landscape, it’s being demolished as I write.
The Como Motel, for those new to the topic, was best known as the site of Candy Montgomery‘s infamous affair with Allen Gore. Montgomery was accused of murdering Gore’s wife, Betty, with 41 blows of an ax. She admitted it and got off. Not guilty.
Other lore is associated with the site, including the fact that Captain Sully Sullenberger, who safely landed US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River after birds struck both engines, stayed here frequently as a kid. We’ve also heard enough tales to believe it true that Townes Van Zandt wrote Pancho and Lefty while staying at the Como.
Long-Lost Little America Penguin Sign Rescued From Remote Wyoming Junk Pile
Truly in the middle of nowhere of southwest Wyoming, a historic Little America sign has been placed by Eddie Shumway. He found the treasure in his inherited junk pile and his daughter, Susie Brinkenhoff, painted it for him. (Jackie Dorothy, Cowboy State Daily)
From Cowboy State Daily: Eddie Shumway was poking through an abandoned junk pile on his property along the Owl Creek in Hot Springs County, Wyoming, when he found a rusty sign and base. When he examined the sign closer, he could just make out the face of a penguin and the words “Little America.”
“I’ve seen those signs when I used to drive up and down the highway, and I knew this was a special sign,” Shumway said. “Here it was, just laying in the junk.”
The sign was from a chain of eight travel centers that were founded in Wyoming 90 years ago.
Their popular billboards used to line the highways of Wyoming to signal that an oasis was close by. For decades, these signs featured the waving penguin that Shumway had just discovered on his property.