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Home  /  Arizona • Roadside Attractions  /  The Thing? Arizona: What Is It?
16 May 2017

The Thing? Arizona: What Is It?

Written by Steve Johnson
Arizona, Roadside Attractions Leave a Comment

May 8, 2017: Driving along I-10 through eastern Arizona is to be deluged with road sign after road sign advertising, “The Thing?”

What is “The Thing?”

It’s a basically some kind of mummy. It’s not a real body, but something made up to look like a real mummy…

“The roadside area was the creation of attorney Thomas Binkley Prince, who was born in Texas in 1913. Prince attended Arizona State University and became a lawyer, practicing law for a time in Phoenix, Arizona. But soon he and his wife Janet moved to the Mojave Desert on Highway 91 and opened their first Thing roadside attraction and curio shop, between Barstow and Baker. However, the expansion of the road into an interstate highway brought about the loss of the building, and in 1965 the Prince family packed up The Thing and moved to the current location in Arizona.”

– Wikipedia

What makes “The Thing?” so peculiar are the hundreds of billboards that advertise it from Tucson in the west to Las Cruces, NM in the east. You see so many of these billboards that by the time you finally get there, you’re so tempted to make the exit.

The exhibit costs only $1.00 to see.

The rest of the roadside store is a Shell gas station and curio shop. Much the curios, however, are Native-American themed collectibles all made in China.

The Thing? is located near Benson, AZ, and you’re not that far from Tombstone.

Steve Johnson
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Having first started riding in 1985 on a Kawasaki KZ400, Steve has ridden all across the United States and Canada. He currently travels full time on his Honda ST1300, living wherever he can find a friendly roof. Follow him on, "Motorcycle Philosophy".

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