The Thing?

The Thing? is an Arizona roadside attraction hyped by signs along Interstate 10 between El Paso, Texas, and Tucson, Arizona. Teaser ads, such as "The Thing? What is it?" and "Mystery of the Desert", entice travelers along this sparse stretch of desert highway to pull in just to find out what the mysterious Thing? might be. Such billboards are similar to signage seen in the South as drivers approach the South of the Border near Dillon, South Carolina and Rock City near Chattanooga, Tennessee).

Location

The Thing? is located just off I-10 at Exit 322 on a hilltop between Benson and Willcox, near Texas Canyon, at 2631 North Johnson Road in Dragoon. On the south side of the highway, the attraction is part of a large gas station and gift shop complex painted red, yellow and blue. Amid the bows and arrows, moccasins, baseball caps, velvet paintings and turquoise jewelry, the gift shop also sells The Thing? shot glasses and T-shirts. Suggestions have been made to management to sell bumper stickers for proud Thing? veterans.

What is it?

The Thing? rates an entry in Doug Kirby's "New Roadside America" (1992), and it once was featured in a Jane Pauley television special on NBC. For a one dollar fee, paid at the shop's cash register, one can enter a small outside courtyard leading to three prefab corrugated steel sheds. Inside are a variety of exhibits, including odd wood carvings of tortured souls (by "Ralph Gallagher, artist"), the "wooden fantasy" of painted driftwood (from an Alamogordo collector), framed lithographs, saddles, rifles, a covered wagon and several vintage automobiles. A sign by a 1937 Rolls-Royce makes the claim that it once belonged to Adolf Hitler. Winding corridors and exhibit halls eventually lead to The Thing?, a mummified mother-and-child tableau encased in a glass-covered coffin.

The concept of the exhibit references the 1950 novelty song, "The Thing", recorded by Phil Harris, with the Charles R. Grean lyrics that keep the listener from learning the true nature of the Thing in the "great big wooden box a-floatin' in the bay." The narrative song ends with these verses::I wandered all around the town:Until I chanced to meet:A hobo who was lookin' for:A handout on the street:He said he'd take most any old thing:He was a desperate man:But when I showed him the...:He turned around and ran:Oh, when I showed him the...:He turned around and ran

:I wandered on for many years:A victim of my fate:Until one day I came upon:Saint Peter at the gate:And when I tried to take it inside:He told me where to go:Get out of here with that...:And take it down below:Oh, get out of here with that...:And take it down below

:The moral of this story is:If you're out on the beach:And you should see a great big box:And it's within your reach:Don't ever stop and open it up:That's my advice to you:'Cause you'll never get rid of the...:No matter what you do:Oh, you'll never get rid of the...:No matter what you do

Also referenced is the 1951 science fiction film, "The Thing from Another World", later remade by John Carpenter as "The Thing" (1982). In 1992, the alternative rock band The Men scored a hit with the song "Church of Logic, Sin and Love," which tells of two lost souls who searched for a purpose, saw the billboards and attempted to find the meaning of life at The Thing?, as noted in this excerpt from the lyrics::Two hours later they decided to stop at a diner, :'Cause they just loved the smell of eggs and coffee. :I just had to smoke a cigarette and wear a hat... :By the time that they set off again, :The sun was starting to set; it made the sky look red like a nuclear ray... :One of them said, "What do you want more than anything in this whole wide world? :Do you want money? Do you want sex? Or do you want all that success?" :I thought about that myself... :Then they came upon The Thing?

:The Thing? ahead 60 miles, do not miss. :Not for the squeamish or depressed, :Not for the unbelievers truly obsessed, :Something you just don't wanna miss. :It's the kind of place where space explorers could have landed around 1963; :When Kennedy was in "Life" magazine, :And everything was aquamarine... :Aquamarine.

Origins

The roadside area was the creation of attorney Thomas Binkley Prince, who was born in Texas in 1913. He grew up in California, studied at Arizona State University and the University of Arizona College of Law, entered law practice in Phoenix and briefly served as a prosecutor for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office. During World War II, while he was working for a Seattle law firm, Prince also ran a pool hall. In the 1950s, Prince and his wife Janet opened their first Thing? roadside attraction and curio shop on Highway 91 between Barstow and Baker, until the expansion of the road into an interstate brought about the loss of the building. In 1965 the Prince family packed up The Thing? and moved to the current location. A heart condition and several strokes led to Prince's death in 1969 at the age of 56.

Syndicated columnist Stan Delaplane traced The Thing? back to 1950. Janet Prince, who later moved to Baltimore, was interviewed by Delaplane in 1956 and told him, "Man came through here about six years ago. He had three of them he got somewhere. He was selling them for $50." Today, the attraction is operated by an Albuquerque-based company, Bowlins, Inc., which owns several roadside trading posts throughout the Southwest.

Watch

* [http://amandacongdon.com/roadblog/2006/11/01/the-thing-what-is-it/ Amanda Across America: Amanda Congdon's tour of The Thing? exhibit halls on Nokia N93 camera phone]
* [http://amandacongdon.com/roadblog/2006/11/21/dancing-across-america/ Amanda Congdon dances in The Thing? parking lot (three minutes after video begins)]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWMobATcCmc A strange journey into the heart of The Thing] A short movie about a trip to The Thing made by the Explorer (newspaper)

External links

* [http://www.descope.com/archive/thing.html Memoir of 1968 visit to The Thing?]
* [http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/1993-01-27/news/feature_4.html "Phoenix New Times": "Shrine to a Road Scholar" (January 27, 1993) by Dave Walker]
* [http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/AZCOCthing.html Roadside America: The Thing?]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4529818 NPR broadcast on The Thing?]
* [http://grindshow.com/GrindShow/Shrine_Of_Homer_Tate.html Tribute to Homer Tate, alleged creator of The Thing?]
* [http://www.explorernews.com/article/show/20604 An article written about The Thing? in the Explorer Newspaper]