The Capri Motel - Sign Series

I've been wanting to do a series of illustrations of all the incredible vintage signs around Joplin, so I thought I'd get started with the greatest of them all (which has sadly been torn down and probably thrown in a landfill somewhere), the Capri Motel.

The Capri Motel was opened in 1962 and was once a Route 66 stop, even though it was a few miles south of the actual Route 66. By the time I was born in 1989, it was a slum village where you could rent rooms by the hour and buy tremendous amounts of meth, cooked fresh on-site. It was a legitimate bummer to see the place fall apart like that, because the actual building and grounds were so badass.

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Here are some photos of the actual sign and photos of the motel.