 Clare
B. Richardson1 ,
2 , 3,
4, 5,
6, 7,
8,
9, 10,
11, 12,
13, 14,
15, 16,
17, 18
| The NASCO factory was at 101 Winona (just
off Central Avenue north of the race track) at that time in two Quonset huts and
they were only recently been torn down and replaced by another business. It was
here the animated signs were cut out and welded together. They were then painted
and packaged for shipment at 203-205 3rd St, the partial present day site of Bill's
Custom Cabinets. The Tuggle Neon business office was next door at 207 3rd St.,
all in the same building and a little over a block south of the Dairy Queen. The
master of ceremonies at the Grand Party was Jack Wolever, who was a well-known
radio personality, but most people only knew him by voice and his name but not
by face. He was from radio station KBHS (which stood for "(We) Bathe Hot Springs")
and was located at 113 3rd St. just ˝ a block south from the Dairy Queen and just
a short block north from NASCO, about half way between the two businesses. Mr.
Slyman had a shop at 121 Prichard and his residence was adjacent at 298 Jerome.
Although I never was able to tie Slyman's Rug Cleaning into the reason his staff
and panel truck were in one of the pictures, I can only speculate he was a close
friend of Mr. Tuggle's and was offered free advertising by having his panel truck
appear in the full page ad for the event to help occupy the parking lot for the
photo. Looking at the list of people in the "Thanks A Million," many are neighbors
to the Dairy Queen such as Wayne Truman's parents place, The Red Lantern, next
door to them was Burris Barbershop, and across the street was Cue Pullen's Esso.
It's fairly easy to see how close-knit the businesses were in that South Hot Springs
area and how they each helped the other to survive. This is why the local Dairy
Queen coordinated with NASCO to put on the event and offered free ice cream that
day and the neighboring radio station provided the master of ceremonies. NASCO
would have footed most of the bill most likely, as the potential huge beneficiary,
if Dairy Queen accepted their signs as standard motif for all establishments.
Costs were reduced for the event by the contributions and recognition of the local
sponsors an probable trade outs. |
| I
finally had all the answers I was looking for and the story behind the picture
was now virtually complete. I took my story and findings to the Sentinel-Record
and on Sunday May 23, 2004 they published a fourth article entitled "Dairy Queen
story ends with date confirmation" and was nearly half a page in size in their
Arts, Etc. section. Back in California, a short article was written about me stating
"The Dairy Queen detective" finds the exact date of the mural on the wall of the
Chino Hills Dairy Queen. It was part of the "Here and There - Notes from all over"
column and ran in both Chino and sister Chino Hills Champion newspapers on June
26, 2004. The July, 2004 issue of World of DQ - the DQ franchise magazine ran
their third article entitled "The Rest of the Story" under their "People Make
It Happen" section. |
I thought
it was so wonderful that some of the best misinformation nationally led to the
best real information locally. In particular the finding of "Curly" in Seattle
helped find him in Hot Springs and revealed the long forgotten National Animated
Sign Company along with their dreams, contributions, and accomplishments to the
community. My misinterpretation of the year being 1953 brought George Sammeth
of Colorado into the picture to re-focus me on 1951 and from there the exact date
and actual story behind the picture became apparent. Other companies of that time
like Slyman's Rug Cleaning, Cue Pullen's Esso, The Red Lantern Restaurant, Tuggle
Neon Sign Company, Wylie Studios, and many other long forgotten Hot Springs businesses
were all brought to center stage of local history, one more time, for a final
bow…all in search
of a Dairy Queen." |
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