History
It was built in 1991 by the Young Electric Sign Company of Salt Lake City, Utah for Willis Herron, a local businessman who spent $700,000 to build the thermometer next to his "Bun Boy" restaurant (later replaced by a Bob's Big Boy restaurant). Soon after completion, it was damaged in high winds, then rebuilt. Herron sold the attraction and restaurant to another local businessman, Larry Dabour, who sold it in 2005. In September 2012, the current owner, Matt Pike, said that the light bill had reached $8,000 per month, and that he had turned off the thermometer due to the bad economy. As of January 2013, the thermometer and accompanying empty gift shop were listed for sale.
Read more about this topic: World's Tallest Thermometer
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... the history of the race, from infancy through its stages of barbarism, heathenism, civilization, and Christianity, is a process of suffering, as the lower principles of humanity are gradually subjected to the higher.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)
“Anything in history or nature that can be described as changing steadily can be seen as heading toward catastrophe.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)