Kingman Visitors Center will have lighting ceremony for its new sign on May 20

The Kingman Visitors Center in the Powerhouse Museum in Kingman, Arizona, will hold a lighting ceremony for its new neon sign on the evening of May 20.

The ceremony will take place from 7 to 7:30 p.m. and will be streamed live on Facebook. The sign at 120 W. Andy Devine Ave. (aka Route 66) will be atop 30-foot-tall pillars.

Kingman resident and author Jim Hinckley posted a photo of the sign a few days ago:

A news release from Josh Noble, City of Kingman tourism service manager, explains how the sign came to be:

In 2015, the City replaced the Powerhouse’s original tired wooden entry sign with a new structure of similar design but more sturdy engineering, including 10-inch pipe supports and all-metal framework. Then in May 2017, a driver in a pickup truck rammed into the sign at high speed, tearing through the supports, retiring the 25-foot giant a mere 20 months after completion.
It was as if the universe had suggested, given us a sign so to speak, that it was time for a new look, a divergence from the old era. In that line of thinking, the Kingman Office of Tourism paused and sought inspiration.  They looked at other iconic landmarks such as the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, the Hollywood sign, and monumental specimens along Route 66 like Twin Arrows or Roy’s Cafe. Staff downloaded images, sketched prototypes, parting together bits of neon, art deco and retro-like pieces from mismatched Legos legacy sets. Eventually, the office reached out to local sign producers for help.
Matt Phillips of Legacy Signs, a sign company located in downtown Kingman, was one of the first to respond. Matt presented a few conceptual renderings and it wasn’t long before they landed on a winning design.
“I thought of the Jetsons, of the 1950s and how neon was a major part of signs at the time,” said Matt. “That inspired me in this design and I’ve always wanted to make a sign this cool.”
Work began in late 2019, before economies slowed in the midst of a pandemic. Legacy Signs continued work in spite of setbacks and kept crafting through uncertainties and disruptions of supplies. Now, just after the three year anniversary of Kingman Visitor Center’s mangled welcoming pylon, a new marker is rising from the ruins.
The masterpiece was conceptualized and constructed by Legacy Signs, electrified by Walker Electric, and funded through the City of Kingman’s Tourism budget with a major contribution from the Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona. 

The ceremony will include musical performances by singer/songwriter Chris Commisso before the lighting at dusk. According to meteorological records, sunset in Kingman that time of year is 7:38 p.m., though darkness may come earlier if it’s cloudy.

(A partial image of the new neon sign at Kingman Visitors Center courtesy of Josh Noble)