The Day the Wineman Hotel Sign Almost Fell
In April 1999, I was downtown when the old Wineman Hotel sign was apparently in danger of falling. The fire department showed up — and I started taking pictures.
APRIL 1999 · HIGUERA & CHORRO
Sometime in April 1999, I was in downtown San Luis Obispo when I noticed something going on at the corner of Higuera and Chorro streets.
The old Wineman Hotel sign was apparently in danger of falling from the building.
The fire department had responded, so I grabbed my camera and started taking pictures.
About the date: these photos were stored in my original photo folder labeled “4/99.” Some of the image metadata shows a later date, but the folder date also matches a later history of the sign that says it was removed in 1999 after becoming dangerously close to falling.
Not exactly a secure perimeter
What struck me at the time was how casually cars and pedestrians were still moving around the intersection. If that big old sign was really at risk of coming down, they weren’t doing a very convincing job of keeping people away from it.
Cars and pedestrians were still moving through the intersection.
People gathered across the street while the fire truck sat below the sign.
A closer look at the Wineman Hotel sign and the fire truck below it.
The response
I kept photographing the scene as firefighters worked around the corner. Looking back at the pictures now, they also make a pretty good snapshot of downtown SLO in 1999 — Copeland’s Sports on the ground floor, the old hotel building, the traffic lights and the cars that were on the street that day.
The Wineman building at Higuera and Chorro during the response.
Firefighters and pedestrians near the building.
The street remained surprisingly active around the scene.
The ladder truck positioned alongside the Wineman building.
This was the last photo I took. A man walked directly beneath the sign. People were yelling, but neither the man nor the firefighters or police seemed to react.
So what happened to the sign?
I couldn’t find a contemporary newspaper story about what happened that day, but later histories fill in part of the story.
The Wineman Hotel was built in 1930 by George Wineman as a 50-room hotel. A history of vintage California signs says the vertical Wineman sign was installed when the hotel was built and was removed in 1999 because it had become dangerously close to falling from the building.
That description lines up remarkably well with what I photographed that day.
The sign survived. During the 2009 restoration of the Wineman building, the original neon sign was recovered and restored. Sources differ a little on where it had been stored: RoadsideArchitecture.com says it was found at a junkyard, while architect Craig Smith later said it was found in a field near the San Luis Obispo Airport. Smith said Southpaw Sign Co. restored it.
On November 18, 2009, the restored neon Wineman Hotel sign was illuminated again at the corner of Higuera and Chorro.
The restored Wineman Hotel sign illuminated at night in a later photo from my collection. I plan to replace this with a new photograph from roughly the same perspective as the 1999 pictures.
The sign that looked like it might disappear in 1999 eventually came back to life in neon.
Do you remember the old Wineman Hotel sign before it was restored — or seeing what happened that day? Add your memory in the comments.
Sources & credits
The April 1999 incident photographs and the later nighttime photograph are from my own collection.