Saving the Colfax signs

AURORA | For all the shade thrown at East Colfax Avenue, there’s still plenty of light to go around along the multifarious thoroughfare.

For now that is.

Whether the corresponding establishment is still humming, many of the neon signs that dot the urban artery have gone unchanged for decades, reflecting a changing city, changing stereotypes and serving as a living mausoleum of metro-area commerce.

There are plenty of remaining iconic staples, like the teal rectangle that juts above the Aurora Fox Arts Center, and the crimson cursive that beckons sugar steak lovers to Bastien’s restaurant in Denver. But for every surviving Colfax banner, there are scores of neon dinosaurs that have fallen victim to the backhoe’s claw, like the marquee for the recently infamous Manor House Motel in Aurora.

“The Manor House sign just disappeared overnight without any warning,” said Corky Scholl, a recreational preservationist who, in recent years, has spearheaded efforts to save Colfax signs with his nonprofit Save the Signs. “That one was lost and it was unfortunate. It was totally unnecessary because it could have been saved.”

In an effort to prevent other iridescent placards from suffering the same fate as the Manor House, Scholl recently helped place East Colfax’s remaining neon signs on a national list that highlights locations prone to falling through the cracks. In coordination with Jennifer Orrigo Charles, director of Colorado’s Most Endangered Places Program, Scholl helped submit an application to get Colfax’s enduring neon tubes on the Society for Commercial Archeology’s annual Falling By The Wayside List, which brings attention to endangered roadside attractions, according to Ralph Wilcox, secretary for the Board of Directors of the SCA.

“It’s a list that … raises awareness for resources around the country that are facing threats,” Wilcox said. “It may not mean funding from our organization, but it may raise awareness from other organizations that have funding or technical assistance available.”

Wilcox said that the Colfax signs join three other historical sites, including a gas station in Hawaii and other resources in Pennsylvania and Minnesota, on SCA’s 2016 list.

Scholl said that he’s hopeful the designation will provide additional exposure for the ongoing efforts to preserve history on Colfax. After watching several East Colfax staples get leveled during the construction of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in the late 2000s, Scholl created a Facebook group entitled Save the Signs to better publicize the region’s ongoing neon gentrification.

“I just remember seeing an image of one of those places near Fitzsimons fenced off with bulldozers there, with kind of a cool sign, and thinking to myself, ‘It’s too bad they’re just going to destroy that sign because it’s kind of a work of art and a piece of history,’” Scholl said. “It got to the point where it was the last straw and figured I’ve got to try and do something.”

Scholl’s Facebook group had 5,953 “likes” as of Wednesday afternoon.

Charles, whose role functions as an offshoot of Colorado Preservation, wrote in the SCA application that one of the biggest threats facing neon signs today is a lack of professionals who know how to make and repair them.

“As Colfax reawakens, pressures of re-urbanization have led to demand for new development,” Charles wrote. “Many of the neon signs were made using high-quality materials that can be expensive to maintain. Few individuals know how to make repairs, and in many cases it is cheaper for the owner to discard the original sign in favor of a low-quality modern version. Finally, as properties change hands, many new owners have existing signs that they no longer have a place for. Lack of understanding and/or a place to retire historic signs have led to many being demolished in favor of signs advertising the new business.”

Charles worked with Scholl to get Colfax’s signs listed as one of Colorado’s most endangered places by Colorado Preservation in 2014.

She wrote that she’s hopeful the extra awareness spurred by the SCA designation will cause developers scooping up Colfax plots to think twice before razing the decades-old works of neon art.

“Many of the threats to neon signs can be mitigated by building an awareness and appreciation for the history of the signs and the craftsmanship that went into their creation,” Charles wrote in the application. “There is support for preserving Colfax’s neon.”