Newly restored Meadow Gold sign will return to Route 66

[Erik Sine]

Newly restored Meadow Gold sign will return to Route 66

By P.J. LASSEK World Staff Writer

Published: 12/5/2008 12:00 AM

Last Modified: 12/5/2008 2:24 AM

This image depicts how the Meadow Gold sign would look at its new location at Quaker Avenue and 11th Street.

The upper left insert is of the sign in its original location at 11th Street and Lewis Avenue.

A 1930s-era Meadow Gold sign will soon glow as it once did along Route 66, pitching the popular milk and ice-cream producer that dominated the heartland.

For decades the sign was one of many neon advertisements that helped distinguish the 2,400-mile stretch of Route 66 from Chicago to Santa Monica, Calif.

After four years in storage, the sign is close to returning to its nostalgic place along the Mother Road.

The restoration work on the sign is complete; the brick platform on which it will sit should be finished by Dec. 31; and, weather permitting, erecting the sign will begin in January, a city official said.

Although the sign was forced from its original site at Lewis Avenue and 11th Street, it still will be located on the same side of 11th Street, one mile to the west, at the same height and facing the same direction.

"You will have the exact same visual driving either direction on 11th Street as you had before," said Dennis Whitaker, a city planner.

The new site, on the southwest corner of Quaker Avenue and 11th Street, was donated to the city by Mark Ferrell, who owns the property where the Corner Cafe sits. The nearly completed brick structure is directly behind the cafe.

The

Foundation for Architecture was instrumental in saving the neglected, rusty sign when the abandoned building it sat on top of was demolished in 2004.

"We knew the Meadow Gold was a one-of-a-kind sign; a landmark," said Lee Anne Zeigler, the foundation's executive director. "We knew if we could marshal the forces and get people involved in saving it, we would, and we did."

Zeigler said it was important that the restoration work only preserve the sign and not rebuild it like new. Everyone has been surprised at how well the porcelain sign cleaned up, she said.

Claude Neon Federal Signs in Tulsa did the restoration.

"It probably will look closer to the way it looked when it first went up," she said.

The only missing parts from the original sign are the two clocks, Zeigler said.

"The last time any one remembers seeing the clocks in place was in the late 1970s," she said. "I've been on a lot of wild goose chases looking for them. Nobody can find them."

Zeigler said the clocks, which were built in Cincinnati, Ohio, could be replicated because she found the plans for them. The issue is funding. It would cost $20,000 for both clocks, she said.

The sign's restoration was funded primarily with money that the foundation received in a $15,000 matching grant from the U.S. Department of Interior National Park Service Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program. The foundation raised a little more than $15,000 in private funds.

Whitaker said the rest of the cost for the project is being paid for with $853,504 in Vision 2025 funds.

The costs include removing the sign from the original location, construction of the brick structure, and erection and stabilization of the sign at the new location.

Erecting the sign and connecting it to electricity will be a coordinated effort between Claude Neon and the Builders Unlimited construction company, Whitaker said.

Kiosks inside the brick structure will tell about the history of the sign and how it ended up in the new location, the role the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture played, the restoration process and other information.