Re: Packard first to use neon sign

Posted by Leeedy On 2014/9/2 10:19:25

Sometimes there just are no places.. or no easy places to do your own research. For instance, in the case of this neon sign, there must be 20 different absurd stories on the internet, in books, magazines and newspapers about when, how much paid, where and how many of the signs there were. You'll quickly find this out.

Having worked on the history of this sign since the early 1970s and after having personally known execs from Earle C. Anthony, Inc. and having collected countless company records, there are still people spreading more absurd stories... and willing to argue until doomsday over anything and everything related to this sign. This may be the most argued and B.S.-d history in the history of history!

Mr. Anthony's own records state that he brought back 3 neon signs (not 2) from France in 1923... and that NONE of them was erected on top of ANY of his dealerships ...and that the very first one was on the corner of 7th and Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles.

Even Georges Claude himself, via Claude Neon (where Mr. Anthony had exclusive marketing rights and even a partial ownership in the U.S. company) clearly stated that Mr. Anthony indeed put up that company's first USA sign in Los Angeles in 1923. But will this fact satisfy today's "historians" in neon? Nahhhh!

When some of these folks see that they are clearly losing, have no point and are missing the target, what do they do? Why, they simply MOVE the target! Can't hit it? Just keep moving the bullseye (or the bull) around until you can! The latest silliness now revolves around attempting to discredit Mr. Anthony and Packard for their pioneering efforts in neon.

One can argue this whole topic into the ground, of course. And make a lot of very bad guesses looking at photos without the proper background knowledge, OR by naively applying the thinking of the 21st century to the 1920s and 1930s in Los Angeles... which is just the wrong approach.

When a relative found out years ago that my family was descended partially from a very famous person in Europe, some silly person promptly jumped on the internet and blurted out that it was impossible this figure could have had any descendants since he had no children with his WIFE!! Wow. Kids born out of wedlock are impossible, huh?

Likewise, one neon person swore it would be impossible for Mr. Anthony to have a neon sign put up in the location where it indeed was- WHEN it was- since "he didn't pull any permits according to the records"...WOW! Brilliant. Only someone who knew nothing about the 1920s or Anthony and everything about arguing would make such a statement!

Mr. Anthony... was a man who could-AND DID-walk around in downtown L.A. carrying a briefcase with $1 MILLION cash. And that was serious money for the 1920s. He was also known for breaking rules-or skirting them. Like when he started the predecessors to Chevron gas stations and by-passed an L.A. city ordinance that said gasoline had to be sold either in a shop or a building... SO? He extended the roofs on his gas stations to cover the pumps-which is why this feature exists to this day! Voila.

OR when they told him he could not keep more than so many gallons of gas on hand to sell? He simply lined up tanker trucks out in the street!

When the City of Los Angeles had officials who balked at bringing the Brooklyn Dodgers to L.A? Anthony had his own KFI radio announcers go live on the air and give out the HOME PHONE numbers of the city officials who were balking at the Dodger move. You couldn't do that today... but GUESS what happened? HINT: they don't call them the Brooklyn Dodgers anymore, folks!

So "pulling a permit" to put up a neon in the 1920s? C'monnnn. (By the way, from what I know, this neon was placed ON an EXISTING billboard sign... it was not a typical skeleton neon stand-alone sign and most likely made any permit-pulling silliness academic... and probably unnecessary).

Powerful men like Earle C. Anthony and Howard Hughes didn't sit around in those days and get stymied by petty rules! It was a different world then ...and a different town. And more often than not, those in charge of running things accommodated these men and their companies.

And yes there were attempts to have neon signage or at least glass tubing that was made to light up in words or characters prior to Mr. Anthony's pioneering move. The Smithsonian has two such early attempts from a large indoor event I believe in St. Louis in the early 1900s. BUT for every obscure attempt such as these, there were hundreds upon hundreds of neon signs put up by Mr. Anthony and his franchise section of Claude Neon company once he got started. Anthony brought neon into permanent outdoor usage as signage and popularized the medium into what became a nationwide phenomenon. Attempting to belittle what Anthony did today is not "history"... it is muckraking and drama for the sake of basal sensationalism.

The internet, TV, books and today's "historians" who were never there and never got into this history until recently would rather look for anything and everything to argue the facts. Do they accept the words of Mr. Anthony and Georges Claude?? Nah! It's easier to just keep muddying the waters with endless arguments, ridiculous pronouncements, endless suppositions and presumptions.

And that photo you'll see all over the internet claiming to be 1923 and the original sign? It shows a small Packard neon mounted on a building that did not exist until 1929! And a position that did not take place until into the 1930s. But we can't let a minor detail like a fact get in the way of wild story-telling, can we?

So when it comes to this Packard neon sign history... welcome to the craziness...