Famous 21-Foot Tumble Inn Cowboy Has New Paint, Is Polished And Waiting For Neon

CASPER — With his bright yellow bandana, gun belt with bullets, and boots polished orange, this big former Powder River cowboy appears nearly ready to stand tall above West Yellowstone Highway on Casper’s west side.

The damage from the winds of time have vanished and the historic neon Tumble Inn Cowboy sign is ready for its public resurrection as soon as his lights can go on.

Entrepreneur and muscle-car restoration expert John Huff, who has spearheaded the sign’s physical refurbishing since it was removed from the side of US 20/26 in 2023, said he went to a Casper expert for help in completing the paint job.

“I’m a painter and he is an artist,” Huff said of Rod Aaker of Aaker Signs & Designs. “He did all of the outlining and shadowing and trimmed out the belt and the cartridges and stuff. We’re just about ready to start mounting glass.”

However, any firm date for when the cowboy will kick up his heels from his current horizontal location where he’s mounted on what resembles an oversized rotisserie device that has made the re-painting easier remains elusive, as the glass work remains ongoing.

Huff said neon artist Connie Morgan continues to work on the restoration of the sign’s neon glass tubes, including replacing some sections that had been destroyed.

“We’re going to put it all on here and get it all lit up as much as we can before we take it down the street,” Huff said. “I want to have it all wired. There are a lot of pieces.”

Morgan, who has completed the “Lounge Cafe” portion of the sign that rests on the cowboy’s shoulder, said she continues to work on replacing and refurbishing the 80 sections of neon glass. 

She characterizes progress as “going pretty good.”

“I have a lot of the west facing glass, maybe two thirds of it done,” she said. “I’m plugging along. I have a full-time job now, so I only get to work on things part-time.”

Morgan said she has not yet gone back to wrestle with glass on the cowboy’s chest that was an issue she uncovered last fall. 

She said then that when she filled the neon tubing that spells the words “Tumble Inn” with gas, the powder inside the glass started to turn black and make the glass “splotchy and dull in spots and that’s not supposed to happen.”

She has since obtained new glass but not yet tried to install it.

“I just thought I would move on to some other stuff that would give me success and not make me feel frustrated,” she said. “It’s coming along, it’s slow, but it’s coming.”

Ready For Glass


Huff showed Cowboy State Daily trays of insulators and connectors for the glass that are all cleaned and ready to go when the glass is ready. There are 16 transformers that work with the 14,000 volts of electricity to light up the sign.

“Each one of them has to have around 35 feet to 50 feet of glass to properly work,” Huff said. “That’s the next project, to get it all wired up.”

The sign will be installed outside the Yellowstone Garage Bar, Grill & Venue at the corner of West Yellowstone Highway and South Elm Street.

Huff said everything is ready for the installation of the sign, he just needs to call an electrician to run a last bit of wire. He has already prepared a beam from the old historic Bessemer Bridge to hold up the end of the “Lounge/Cafe” sign that rested on the roof of the old Powder River facility.

“So, there will be a little bit of history in that, too,” he said.

On the “Sizzling Steaks” portion of the sign that the cowboy’s boots rest on, Huff said the cattle skull that was discernible on the old sign has been repainted and some sage-like grass painted in along the bottom.

The actual scene on the bottom of the original sign was hard to discern due to the years of weather.

Huff said the red on that portion of the sign is meant to match the red-oxide color scheme at the Yellowstone Garage. He looks forward to the day it leaves his garage for its final location.

“A lot of the drudgery is pretty much over now,” he said.

Colorado-based retired engineer Jonathan Thorne bought the Tumble Inn property in 2023 to gain ownership of the classic sign.

Thorne has told Cowboy State Daily that he “just wanted to save this piece of history for the Wyoming people who have come to enjoy it.”

As a young man, Thorne recalled passing the sign on the way from Colorado to relatives in Cody.

The sign’s origins can be traced to a Wyoming oilman who wanted to own a steakhouse and bought the log restaurant and bar. He found the sign in Las Vegas and had it revamped for his purposes.

Contact Dale Killingbeck at dale@cowboystatedaily.com

Dale Killingbeck can be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.