The Oklahoma Route 66 Centennial Commission, led by state tourism chief and Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell, is considering building a Route 66 neon park at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City.
Those details emerged in a Facebook post by the Oklahoma-based Billboard Museum, which hopes to eventually build its own facility in the OKC metro area.
The Oklahoma Historical Society on Aug. 24 presented the neon park idea to the centennial commission.
“It proposes using a portion of the Oklahoma History Center’s back parking lot/green space area with the signs coming from us!” the Billboard Museum wrote. “The presentation was well-received but must go through more steps before it is accepted, much less finalized. The goal would be to have things in place by 2025, a year before the actual Centennial.
“The signs shown in the concept art are either in the possession of the Billboard Museum Association, loaners, or hopeful acquisitions or loans. Consider it reality mixed with wishful thinking. None of these signs are state-owned and come from a number of different towns along Route 66. Note these are CONCEPTS only. Nothing is final so there’s no need to get hung up on details.”
The proposals for the neon sign park would be on the southeast part of Oklahoma History Center property. The history center is just off 23rd Street, aka Route 66.
The Billboard Museum hopes the collaboration would “open doors” for other ventures.
The full post, including conceptual drawings, can be seen below:
(One of the artist’s renderings for a proposed Route 66 neon sign park at the Oklahoma History Center in Oklahoma City)