I’m now hunkered down for the big winter project.  I’m combing my entire website for dead links to other websites and checking out the map links for ev-ry-thing (2600+ pages) to see if there have been changes (demolitions, removals, repaints, etc.).  As you can imagine, most of the news is not good.  But, these days, anything that’s still in place and hasn’t been touched is good news!

Over the next several months, I’ll be updating my website with the info as I go and posting some of these discoveries here at blog posts.  The focus will be on signs since that seems to be my blog audience.  But I’ll slip in some buildings and statues as well.

So.  Let’s get the ball rolling with the 63 Diner in Columbia, MO which closed in 2015.  These signs hung in there until at least 2016.  But, by this year, they were gone and the building was deteriorating.

I think most of the signs were retro (new/made to look vintage).  The pig might have been vintage.  The atomic sign either came from a Mr. Quick or was modeled after that burger stand chain’s sign.  There was also a cute giant burger & french fries here.  Gone as well.

 
From the Egyptian Revival section at my site, here’s a heartbreak in Los Angeles.  The Ahmed Apartments from 1925 had lots of nice detail.  Until a couple of years ago when some bozo decided to paint and basically ruin it.  Here’s a detail photo I took in 2010:

And here’s the Google Street View tragic view – ugh:

 

That’s enough bad news for one blog post.  Here are some “wins” from the Giant Animals section.  While checking on all the cow head statues, I feared the worst when I saw this at Google Street View for 2017 for Holland Farms in Yorkville, NY:

My photo from 2010:

But after Googling a bit to see what happened (bakery closed or what), I found out that the Cupcake and Chuckie had been restored:
https://www.facebook.com/hollandfarms/photos/a.1128178683878451/1896233233739655/?type=3&theater

Here’s John Margolies’ photo of the sign in 1987:
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/mrg.07511/

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The Giant Horseshoe Crab in Blanchester, OH was also missing at Street View.  My photo from 2009:

A little hunting at Google revealed that the crab is now a feature of a vintage trailer park in Hillsboro, OH:
http://www.ohio.org/blogs/2015/10/worlds-largest-horseshoe-crab-has-new-home

 
Same situation for the Whale Car in South St. Paul, MN.  Missing at Street View so I called the new used car lot biz that’s there now and found out that he’s been moved to the new owner’s location nearby:

 

Let’s end with a sign since that’s what most of you want to hear about.  This sign in Victoria, TX was pretty much destroyed last year by Hurricane Harvey.  The text panel survived but the Indian was completely crumpled.  My photo from 2011:

After corresponding at Facebook for over a year with the owner who insisted that the sign was being “restored”, I had pretty much given up.  But then this news item popped up.  The Indian had been recreated and reinstalled.  Not neon but the style still looks fairly close (although the colors look kinda bright):
https://www.victoriaadvocate.com/news/iconic-sign-returns-to-the-corral/article_47e665ce-f41e-11e8-83e4-3fc7e71b2121.html

More good news/bad news coming soon.  There’ll be another post most likely next weekend.

Happy trails,
dj & the dogs