The Thing (roadside attraction)

The Thing was purchased by former lawyer Thomas Binkley Prince in the mid-twentieth century, who quickly based a tourist attraction on the strange object.

The Thing is located at 32°05′N 110°03′W / 32.083°N 110.050°W / 32.083; -110.050 just off I-10 at exit 322 on a hilltop between Benson and Willcox, near Texas Canyon, at 2631 North Johnson Road, Dragoon, Arizona.

Inside the exhibit are a variety of items, including odd wood carvings of tortured souls by woodcarver Ralph Gallagher, the "Wooden Fantasy" of painted driftwood purchased from an Alamogordo, New Mexico collector, framed 1880s to early 1900s lithographs, historic engraved saddles, guns and rifles of historic Western significance, a Conestoga wagon from Oklahoma!, a buggy without a horse, and a vintage American automobile from the 1930s.

[1][2] In August 2018, the Bowlin Travel Centers unveiled a new, modern museum building and other updates to house, in some order or theme, most of the items formerly stored in the three sheds.

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.

Mike Bowlin, the owner of the site in 1993, noted that the billboards realistically "start around El Paso to the east and somewhere on I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson to the west.

[7] Due to The Thing's popularity, it has appeared in many books, such as Doug Kirby's New Roadside America (1992), and Weird Arizona (2007), and it once was featured in a Jane Pauley television special on NBC.