Clare B. Richardson

Back

Page 11

1 , 2 , 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

Another important call came to tell me that a lady named Martha Blackwell, who worked at Rainbow Realty, actually has the real original "Curly the Clown" animated mechanical sign. It was not in Seattle as erroneously reported! Turns out that Mr. Morphew's clue was very important, although he probably did see a bell hop as he first reported. But he correctly reported seeing Hot Springs on the manufacturer ID label. Indeed a unit made by NASCO had reached Seattle. Now the real Curly surfaces in Hot Springs, in beat up rusty condition at the property once owned by Erma Adams off Albert Pike Road. The new owner is none other than a Rainbow Realty agent who bought the property with cabins on it from Adams and found the sign two years ago under some floorboards during the dismantling of one of the sheds on the property.

...Nellie Wilson, whose late husband was a nephew of Granville Tuggle, also called. Mr. Tuggle owned Tuggle Neon Sign Company, Tuggle Manufacturing Company, Lakeliner House Boats, and NASCO was his newest spin-off venture. She was able to locate an original unused envelope with the NASCO logo and address and forwarded a scan of it to me from the many documents she had of Mr. Tuggle. She also found a letter by him explaining his ventures in a letter to request future financial backing for his businesses.

...Dean Stafford called to tell me he worked for Meeks Neon Sign Company for many years and repaired many of the NASCO mechanical armed signs which were notorious for wear in the brass bearings and had to be lubricated often or the arm seized up. I later found out the arm moved up and down 43 times a minute, which was much faster than I had envisioned. I had thought maybe it was much more like 5 - 10 times per minute, maximum. Dean recalled a 1950 yellow Oldsmobile with a welded frame attached to the bumper used to haul samples all over the country. He also reported seeing Bill Doyle air brushing at night at the 3rd street location (201 - 203 3rd St.) now occupied by Bill's Cabinet Shop. He reported that Mr. Tuggle used to have a young man named Richard Meeks working for him and was grooming him to run the business. Tuggle succumbed at age 48, to some sort of chemical exposure overtime from either his war

duty exposed to hazardous chemicals working in Flagstaff, Arizona or chemical exposure used in his own facilities. Richard Meeks eventually did take over the Tuggle Neon Sign Company to become Meeks Sign Company and is now run by Richard's two sons, David and Rob to this very day. NASCO pretty much disappeared after Mr. Tuggle's death and was totally gone by 1955. However Meeks Sign Company continued to maintain the signs into the 1970's. The mechanical arm signs are no longer used anywhere that I know of but I had the pleasure on my recent visit of seeing two of them in mint condition, never installed, and not for sale, at Shaw's Antique's 1526 Central in Hot Springs. One is a working bell-boy (probably like the one Mr. Morphew probably saw in Seattle) and the other a temporarily jammed bus boy. Mike Shaw, the owner, has tinkered and repaired these animated signs in the past and showed me a motor from one that showed the RPM as 43 per minute which was direct drive to the arm itself.

I received three out of state calls that were interesting. The first was forwarded to me through Dairy Queen and written by Jim Adcox, a former resident of Hot Springs now living in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He wrote DQ headquarters to say he was in his local Dairy Queen and saw the mural and identified it as Hot Springs and told the owner. The owner argued with him that it was Massachusetts. So he called his mom in Hot Springs and asked her to go stand on the corner of 3rd and W. Grand and take a picture of the Dairy Queen to prove he was right. She had to advise her son what he was looking for was torn down now and she sent him my just published 10/12/03 front-page story about my adventure in search for that mural location. He contacted me in total disbelief about the timing of events and was eager to set the owner of that Dairy Queen straight about where that large mural picture was taken.

Another call came from Rose Sparkman of Magnum, Oklahoma whose father was Richard Meeks and owned Meeks Sign Company. (This is the same Richard Meeks groomed by Mr. Tuggle to take over his neon sign business that was discussed earlier). Her sister had forwarded her one of the recent articles so she and her mom, who was visiting her in Oklahoma at that time, provided me a lot of verbal information about the beginnings of Meeks Neon Sign Company. The third call was really interesting from Johnny Ballard of Paul's Valley, Oklahoma. Back on September 1, 1950 Mr. Ballard opened a Dairy Queen and also ran three independent Dairy Kings. A year or two later he had attended a convention in Oklahoma City for Dairy Queen owners. At the show was a demonstration by NASCO of their mechanical animated signs (NASCO was known to also demonstrate with miniature working models that were maybe ½ scale that were easier to transport across the country. It is unclear if Mr. Ballard saw a full-size model or a miniature). He loved the idea because a moving arm with a light on meant they were still open for business at night. When the light was off and the arm stopped moving, they were closed. So Mr. Ballard agreed to buy one for his Dairy Queen and asked NASCO if they would create a version similar to "Curly The Clown" but as a "king with a crown" instead of a "clown with a curl on the top of his head." NASCO was in the business to add to their list of customized characters in their product mix, so jumped at this opportunity. When all four were ready, Ballard drove to Hot Springs with a trailer and picked up the signs and hauled them back to Oklahoma and installed them himself. He said the cost for each one was "not terribly expensive" at $250 - $300 each as he recalled. Mr. Ballard, like Erma Adams, had run-ins with Dairy Queen headquarters but in his case, on several counts. First he called his Dairy Queen "Ballard's Dairy Queen" and Dairy Queen wanted him to just call it a "Dairy Queen." So Dairy Queen went after him for also owning three Dairy King's and claimed they had rights to any royalty used in naming ice cream establishments associated with the word "Dairy" be it Dairy Prince, Dairy King, or Dairy Queen. So Mr. Ballard solved the issue by selling his only Dairy Queen and changed the name of his three remaining Dairy King's to Ballard's Drive-In. However, he kept the mechanical animated kings until they wore out. Over the years he sold two of those establishments, but still runs the remaining one to this very day in Paul's Valley on a street called….(you guessed it)…Ballard Road. It's people like Johnny and Erma that show you the determination and stubbornness to succeed and not let anyone or anybody stand in their way of their goals...franchise be damned!

Top