This Tucson sign museum is aglow after recent recognition

Tucson’s Ignite Sign Art Museum can now add “award-winning” to its title, thanks to a recent nod from the Arizona Preservation Foundation and State Historic Preservation Office.

The museum, which is dedicated to restoring and displaying Tucson’s signage of the past, was one of 10 projects across the state given a Governor’s Heritage Preservation Honor Award, a distinction bestowed upon organizations that work toward preserving the state’s history.

“It is nice to get recognition for what we are doing here,” said Jude Cook, owner of Cook & Company Sign Makers, who opened Ignite with his wife, Monica Hay Cook, in 2018.

Jim McPherson, president of the board of the Arizona Preservation Foundation, said recognizing efforts to save vintage and neon signage is relatively new for them, calling it in an email, “a sign of growing popularity among preservation advocates and communities where there are active efforts to save and restore such features.”

Over the past decade, only three sign projects have been awarded the honor: Ignite, the Tucson Neon Sign Rehabilitation Project in 2012, and the Neon Sign Park in Casa Grande in 2020.

Other Southern Arizona projects and individuals that received the award this year, include the Pima County Historic Courthouse Rehabilitation; Tucson resident R. Brooks Jeffery; Marana residents Gordon and Linda Hanson; and the Camp Naco Story Map in Bisbee, which tells the story of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry of Buffalo Soldiers stationed there. The Camp Naco map took the foundation’s highest honor, the James W. Garrison Grand Award.

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Cook said the award will help when they apply for grants for the museum.

As for the certificate they received, “I think I am going to frame it in neon,” he added.

Ignite Sign Art Museum, 331 S. Olsen Ave., is open 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays. Admission is $12 with discounts available.

The museum will be holding an “Ignite at Night” event on Nov. 10 as part of Tucson Modernism Week. The evening will run from 5-8 p.m. and tickets are $15.

For more information, visit ignitemuseum.com.