Category Archives: Signs

Tulsa Route 66 Neon Signs

Who doesn’t love neon signs? What used to seem cheap and tacky is now cool.

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I’ve loved the Meadow Gold sign here in Tulsa since it was put back up a few years ago. I didn’t realize until last night that I had never seen it lit up at night. I can’t believe it. I’ve been thinking of a good reason to not be  on daylight savings time during the Winter all my life and now I finally found one. Do you happen to have another?

Meadow Gold Sign

This is what it looks like during the day, nice but not the same.

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Right down the road is El Rancho Grande. I’ve never eaten there but if the food is a good as the sign them I’m missing out.

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What a sign! I love that long looping lasso that also forms the “El” part of the name. And the Arrow, just in case you are wondering where the restaurant is the arrow is telling you that it is right next to the sign. I wonder how the margaritas are?

Corrgated Metal Reflection

And a bonus, right where I parked my car while taking pictures of the restaurant sign, an out of luck edgy business using corrugated metal in their storefront. Not as cool as neon, but I love the neon reflections.

Have you seen any good signs lately?
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Seattle Signs

Seattle Washington is a place of great natural beauty. It is also a fairly old town by western US standards and that makes for a wealth of old signs.

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These old mission signs are wonderful. Talk about down and out. The mission above still seems to be operating. The sign below was displayed on the wonderful “Seattle Underground” tour.

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Many of the buildings have kept their original signs like the one above.

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Steam Baths have a not very nice ring to them. This is another sign you can see on the Seattle Underground Tour.

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The more modern signs are wonderful. Seattle has a lot going on I loved the J&M Cafe sign above embedded in a matrix.

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We didn’t eat at Cutters Crabhouse but I love the sleek modern look of it.

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We saw a few of these signs around town. I love Seattle and it is a great sports town but they need to quit being whiny babies!

Oklahoma City will never give up their Thunder. Uh, at least until the next Oil Bust.

Signs, Signs

October, Osage County – Signs

This past Saturday I traveled up to  Osage County, Oklahoma to run a race on Frank Phillips old ranch, Woolaroc (“Wood Lakes Rocks”). Afterward I drove over to the old oilfield town of Barnsdall. Turned out that Barnsdall had some nice old signs.

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Barnsdall is the birthplace of Anita Bryant. Everybody calm down, I know that she became controversial but she has been gone some time now. It always fascinates me where people come from. I’m always asking where people are from. Except for people from Texas. If people are from Texas that is pretty much front loaded in the conversation. They will not ask you where you are from though, they figure that if you are from Texas you’d of already told them, and they don’t want to embarrass you in case you are not from there.

Anyway, Barnsdall claims fame to the world’s only Main Street Oil Well. Here is the sign.

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And here is the well.

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I don’t want to burst anybody’s bubble. But I don’t think the well is operating any more. In fact it hasn’t produced in decades. I have access to databases that tell me that it is no longer an oil well. Also they say it is the only “Main Street” oil well. I worked in the San Andres field in the Permian Basin of Texas. They had wells drilled in several streets. That’s right, they just took over the whole street. None of the wells were on “Main Street” though.

Hey you know who else is from Barnsdall?

Yep, Clark Gable lived there for a few years when his father worked in the oil fields. I’m telling you Barnsdall is a good place to be from.

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Barnsdall turned out to be a good place for sign photos.

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The original name for Barnsdall was “Bigheart” it got changed about a hundred years ago.

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The downtown area had some old buildings and interesting signs.

Barnsdall is a nice little town with a lot of history. For one thing it is where my employer, ONEOK, got started way back on October 12, 1906 with a pipeline that moved gas from the Barnsdall area to Oklahoma City.  The company history is wild and wooly reflective of the booms and busts of the energy industry. I love it. Check out a slightly outdated version here.

Oh, by the way, Where are you from? I’m from Espanola, New Mexico originally. My parents lived closer to Santa Fe but Dad called around while Mom was expecting and Espanola was birthing babies cheaper. Kind of set the tone for my whole life. I’ve been looking for deals ever since.

Signs, Signs

Wednesday Signs – Pike Street Market’s Neon Signs

Back to Seattle, sorry. The big tourist destination on the waterfront in Seattle is Pike Street Market. It buzzes all day every day and shuts down completely at 6 PM. Everybody talks about the fish. And yes there is fish everywhere.

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I loved the neon signs. They are everywhere and they are big and brash. There is lots going on so they have to be seen. No sign is seen better than a neon sign.

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Signs, Signs

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Signs – Lighting it Up

#running #morning #industry #river #tulsa

I run with two Ipods now. An antiquated Nano for music and a newer Touch for taking pictures (cuz I’m a picture taker not a photographer). I happened by this plant a week or so ago on a morning run just as the sun had come up.

I’ve always admired the old school giant neon signs of PSO’s Tulsa Power Station right on the Arkansas River, especially the script “Electricity in big red letters just so we know what is going on there. Its from a different era where utilities promoted themselves a little more aggressively.

Signs, Signs