Queen Victoria

John J. Welder Home carriage stone and gate post

Grand Dame Edna

Right on Main Street in Edna, Texas, the 1950 Edna Theatre:

Neonopolis

...a.k.a. 25 neon signs part iv...

1.
Houston, Texas
I begin this episode of Neonopolis with a sign I drove by for many years without stopping. Part of the problem was the fairly intense traffic along Interstate 45/the Gulf Freeway. This Harmony Wedding Chapel is on a feeder road off of I45, and one of those times, I finally pulled over and got its weathered old neon sign.

25 more more neon signs

....or would it be more²?

1.
Houston
I found this one in a weed-covered, cracked cement parking lot, behind a row of abandoned commercial buildings, in a "rough" part of Houston, while looking for a totally different sign (which was gone). The font on this one caught my eye.

25 more neon signs

1.
Pasadena, Texas

Due to the the overwhelming response to the previous....

25 neon signs

1.
Tyler

There is something about a vintage neon sign that just thrills the heck out of me. I've driven a lot of Tejas (and elsewhere) to find them, and I hope to find more. But the very nature of them (vintage) makes them increasingly difficult and rare to find. Add to that factors such as the climate, like it is down along the Gulf of Mexico (where I grew up, down in Galveston). The salty air causes stuff to rapidly rust away, and the occasional hurricanes do their fair share of destroying signs from the past. So, due to my difficulty in locating them, the joy when finding or stumbling upon one is great. These are some of my favorites (out of a set of 336, taken from December 2005 to April 2011).

Rosewood Theatre

My dad took this picture of the Rosewood Theatre in Memphis, Tennessee, during the '70s or 80s. The theater as pictured is long gone.

A quick one (while he's away)

A couple of neon signs in H-Town:

The need for neon

That "SIMON" neon sign in April 2008....

What is old is new again

So, the great old Mize Department Store (openened in downtown Nac in 1925, moved to its last location in 1961) has been closed for over three years now. Nonetheless, I was distressed (to say the least) to drive by it on North Street about a month ago to see this sign being dismantled and taken down, leaving an ugly, plain scarred brick wall:


I nearly turned around to take a picture of the workmen taking it down, but I was so sickened and horrified by the scene, I thought f*ck it, nobody else cares, so why should I? It seemed like just another bit of old Nacogdoches being thrown onto the scrapheap of forgotten history.

But I was slightly relieved when, upon a Sunday walk downtown, I went by the storefront and saw the very same sign hanging on the wall inside. So, I thought, at least, it's still around! Perhaps I could even go inside someday what is a soon-to-be-open insurance company, which moved into the empty department store and ask them to let me take a picture of it.

Well, imagine then my pleasant shock when, upon an evening run in the same area this past weekend, I see this:
Holy sh*t! And what is weird, is the old sign (the one which was dismantled and taken down) is still hanging on a wall inside the soon-to-open insurance company. So, they went to the trouble to not only carefully remove the old sign (which had broken neon tubing), but they also completely created an authentic replica. I may just have to give those people some business! I.....I love them. Sniff.

The sun sets on Main Street

Main Theater

Horn tootin'

I just got a picture published (I guess that's the right word) in the current print issue of The Oxford American. The Oxford American is a quarterly literary magazine that features writing and art from Southerners or about the South. Their tagline is "The Southern Magazine of Good Writing." They used my picture of the Hokus Pokus Liquor neon sign in Alexandria, Louisiana. It accompanies an article in the Race column titled "Adaption: The biology of shame," by Solon Timothy Woodward, author of Cadillac Orpheus: A Novel. They sent me two copies of the edition in which my picture was used, as well as a subscription(!).

Here is part the opening paragraph:

I had chosen to work as a public-health doctor in Alexandria (pro-nounced "ellic"). As my family and I enter the city, we drive down Jackson Street. A neon ghost sign floats alongside Hokus Pokus Liquors, one of the few businesses that seems to have survived the decades.

In search of Route 66 (journey's end)

From whence I came:

Carrizozo, New Mexico
Vaughn, New Mexico
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
Tucumcari, New Mexico
San Jon, New Mexico/Adrian, Texas/Vega, Texas
Amarillo, Texas
McLean, Texas
Shamrock, Texas


Shamrock

Besides the fact Old Route 66 goes right through the middle of Shamrock, Texas, the draw for me was the Tower Conoco Station/U Drop-Inn. There's a lot more information about it here, but it is a restored Art Deco service station built in 1936. It was later used as the inspiration for Ramone's body shop in Cars. I timed my arrival in town so I could get pictures of it in the sunlight and at night once the neon came on.








A recorded Texas Historic Landmark, Shamrock's water tower is supposed to be the tallest one in the state.









Good things come to those who wait:

In search of Route 66 (Amarillo by....midday)

What has come before:

Carrizozo, New Mexico
Vaughn, New Mexico
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
Tucumcari, New Mexico
San Jon, New Mexico/Adrian, Texas/Vega, Texas
Amarillo, Texas

Just a couple of miles west of Amarillo is the Cadillac Ranch. I actually had to use longitude and latitude for once with my GPS to find this place, located just off of I-40 in a cattle field. Built in 1974 by Stanley Marsh and San Francisco art collective the Ant Farm; moved about 3 miles west in 1997 due to development. It is one of the Route 66 artifacts referenced in Cars. And although you could Google "cadillac ranch" and find thousands of pictures just like these (many much better), here you go:


A ten verse ode to the birth and death of the American automobile's tailfin?


I'd love to get back to Amarillo some time and get this at sunrise or sunset. Now those would be a little more unique.


I read somewhere this is a historic, old Art Deco theater.


The Beef Burger Barrell has been open since the late 1930s.

This Art Deco apartment building (the Arlington/Sunset Apartments) from 1926 wasn't actually on Route 66, and it probably belongs in another post, but it was in Amarillo, I was there, so voilà.

One of the oldest buildings in downtown Amarillo, the Santa Fe Building is an example of Late Gothic Revival style and was completed in 1930.




The 1930 Pueblo Deco (Art Deco) Paramount Theater


Streamline Moderne Greyhound Bus Station, c. 1947


The 1940, Streamline Moderne Bivens Building


The Potter County Courthouse, c. 1932, Moderne


Back on Route 66...



This had to have been an irresistible eye-catcher for kids, who in turn would beg an exhausted (after a long day of driving on Route 66) mom and dad to stop and stay here for the night.



Built from blueprints dated October, 1944, the Triangle Motel at 7954 Amarillo Boulevard East Amarillo, Texas, was one of the first motels built on Route 66. Cream-colored brick veneer was hand-cut and oven-dried in Amarillo.

Called "A Tourist Court," the Triangle Motel was a God-sent haven midway to California, offering comfortable suites with one 12x16 room, the other one 12x12. The bathrooms with extra-large tiled showers--3x5--were also unexpected luxury for weary travelers in the middle forties. (source)



The Big Texan opened its doors alongside Route 66 back in 1960. When news came of the building of the new interstate, threatening to bypass the business and suck its life out, a new home for The Big Texan was built at a the current location in 1970. (source)

Carrizozo, New Mexico
Vaughn, New Mexico
Santa Rosa, New Mexico
Tucumcari, New Mexico
San Jon, New Mexico/Adrian, Texas/Vega, Texas
Amarillo, Texas
McLean, Texas
Shamrock, Texas