{"id":281613,"date":"2024-06-07T08:06:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=281613"},"modified":"2024-06-06T13:01:33","modified_gmt":"2024-06-06T18:01:33","slug":"vegas-myths-busted-this-is-the-worlds-tallest-thermometer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-myths-busted-this-is-the-worlds-tallest-thermometer\/","title":{"rendered":"VEGAS MYTHS RE-BUSTED: The ‘World\u2019s Tallest Thermometer’"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cVegas Myths Busted\u201d publishes every Monday, with a bonus Flashback Friday edition.\u00a0<\/em>Today\u2019s entry in our ongoing series originally ran on Sept. 4, 2023.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The “world\u2019s tallest thermometer” in Baker, Calif., is a liar.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not that there\u2019s a taller thermometer somewhere in the world robbed of its rightful title. It\u2019s that the spectacle that towers over the Mad Greek Caf\u00e9, a dozen gas stations, and everything else in the Mojave Desert town two-thirds of the drive up Interstate 15 from LA to Vegas isn\u2019t a working thermometer.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"World's
The “world’s tallest thermometer” can be seen dozens of miles away from its location in Baker, Calif. (Image: YouTube)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s just a three-sided digital sign that displays the temperature measured by a thermometer that is<\/em> real — but much, much smaller — located somewhere inside of it.<\/p>\n

And, as far as freestanding digital signs go, the “world’s tallest thermometer” doesn’t even make the Top 10. The current record holder, located 94 miles north of Baker in Las Vegas, is nearly three times its size. And before the MSG Sphere’s 366-foot tall LED outer skin was switched on, the record holder was the Aria sign — also in Las Vegas — at twice the size of Baker’s digital sign.<\/p>\n

\"Bun
This sign wasn’t tall enough for restaurateur Willis Herron. So he conceived of a bigger idea. (Image: weirdca.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bun Warmer<\/h2>\n

In 1956, Willis Herron became a co-owner of the Bun Boy on Baker Boulevard. According to its roadside sign, this restaurant was the \u201chome of the best fresh strawberry pie & butter thin pancakes.\u201d<\/p>\n

A kitchen blaze burned the Bun Boy down in 1990. While Herron rebuilt it with insurance money, he sought to add something more memorable for the public to associate it with than offensive jokes about its name.<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the time, Baker was known to the outside world for only two things — being a rest stop and being hot as blazes. So Herron threw in with the latter and paid YESCO $700K to do its thing.<\/p>\n

The Salt Lake City-based Young Electric Sign Co. built Vegas Vic and owns and operates the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.<\/p>\n

\n

The resulting sign featured 5,000 incandescent light bulbs and stood 134 feet tall. That wasn\u2019t coincidental. It\u2019s because 134 degrees was the highest official temperature ever recorded on Earth — set in neighboring Death Valley on July 10, 1913. (Click here<\/a> for a trip into the weeds about whether that record may have also been a myth.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After it was built, but before it was switched on, Herron’s sign was snapped in two by 70 mph winds that also trashed a gift shop below it. It was rebuilt and 125 cubic yards of concrete were poured into its steel core as reinforcement. Opening day was Oct. 9, 1992.<\/p>\n

\"World's
Baker, Calif.’s biggest tourist attraction as photographed by a drone. (Image: worldrecordacademy.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Under the Weather<\/h2>\n

Eight years later, an ailing Herron sold his thermometer — along with his Bun Boy and an associated motel — to a Burger King franchisee. Five years after that, the franchisee sold them to a local businessman named Matt Pike. Pike turned the Bun Boy into a Bob\u2019s Big Boy and, in 2012, switched off the fake giant thermometer to save on its very real giant electric bill: $8K a month.<\/p>\n

Yet saddened tourists still stopped to take photos of the darkened sign. So Herron’s widow vowed to buy it back.<\/p>\n

\n

Though Pike\u2019s $1.75 million asking price was too steep, a foreclosure and a court order by a federal judge intervened. In a ceremony attended by all 916 Baker residents two years later, Barbara Herron switched her late husband\u2019s crowning achievement back on. Only now, it used energy-saving LEDs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

After Barbara died in 2022, ownership of the sign passed to her children.<\/p>\n

Bonus Tall Tale<\/h2>\n

Because the temperature in Death Valley was never expected to top 134 degrees Fahrenheit, that\u2019s supposedly the highest temperature the sign is capable of displaying.<\/p>\n

Nope. This is also a myth because the sign can go up to 139 degrees.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“The digital readout is set up to go up by 10-degree increments between the balls,” LaRae Harguess, one of the Herron children, told Casino.org.<\/em> “The highest ball is 130, so 139 is the highest it will go, since there isn\u2019t a 140 ball.”<\/p>\n

Could a new computer program be written to accommodate even higher temperatures caused by global warming?<\/p>\n

“Not without changing everything,” Harguess said.<\/p>\n

Look for \u201cVegas Myths Busted\u201d every Monday at <\/strong>Casino.org. <\/b><\/em>Visit VegasMythsBusted.com <\/a><\/b>to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0\u201cVegas Myths Busted\u201d publishes every Monday, with a bonus Flashback Friday edition.\u00a0Today\u2019s entry in our ongoing series originally ran on Sept. 4, 2023.\u00a0 The “world\u2019s tallest thermometer” in Baker, Calif., is a liar. It\u2019s not that there\u2019s a taller thermometer somewhere in the world robbed of its rightful title. It\u2019s that the spectacle that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":288058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[82013,81886,88494,82353,1],"tags":[87144,87145,81905,87147,84363,84364,23,87146,82246,84793,83613,87564,87143,87142],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nVEGAS MYTHS RE-BUSTED: The 'World\u2019s Tallest Thermometer' - Casino.org<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"EDITOR\u2019S NOTE:\u00a0\u201cVegas Myths Busted\u201d publishes every Monday, with a bonus Flashback Friday edition.\u00a0Today\u2019s entry in our ongoing series originally ran on\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/vegas-myths-busted-this-is-the-worlds-tallest-thermometer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"VEGAS MYTHS RE-BUSTED: The 'World\u2019s Tallest Thermometer' - 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