I took a drive on Arrow Highway the other day to check out the new/old L.A. County Fair sign. It stands a few yards west of White Avenue in La Verne at Fairplex Gate 15.
The sign originally stood at Foothill and White near the Mount Baldy Drive-In sign, which featured three images of a skier on the slopes; when the neon blinked, the skier appeared to be in motion.
The drive-in was in existence from about 1960 to 1984, when it was replaced by a Target store, according to Charles Phoenix’s “Cruising the Pomona Valley” guidebook. The fair sign was there in approximately the same span and, after being taken down, was preserved in a Fairplex warehouse until its recent restoration.
“That was a little miracle they found it,” Phoenix told me. He was pleased to know it was restored, and by the same company that made it originally, Pomona-based Williams Sign Co.
It looks pretty sharp, and I’m looking forward to driving past there at night to see the neon.