Green Spot Cafe sign
A 1939 postcard featuring the Green Spot Cafe and Annex (the hotel – which is still standing – is across the street).
In the golden age of neon (from about 1920 to 1965), nearly every sign was made with custom lettering. Some were roughly based on preexisting models, but rarely would you see a sign so directly drawn from a typeface as this one for the Green Spot Cafe, built circa 1935. The letters are derived from Hobo, a typeface born in 1910, but mostly forgotten until the late 1960s, making this a rare 1930s example of Hobo in action.
The cafe was a tourist stop and getaway for Hollywood stars in Victorville, California on Route 66, at the edge of the Mojave Desert. It burned down in 1953.
A cropped detail of the previous image, with a Hobo (Adobe’s digital version) below for comparison
Later, the original sign was moved around the corner and replaced with a more elaborate sign referencing the dude ranches of the area. This postcard clarifies the Green Spot logo found in multiple places on the building, and at the center of the Hobo sign: a splat of green.
