That giant Big State sign no longer glows over downtown Irving, but it may not be gone for good. The city and local museum supporters are now working to restore the longtime landmark and give it a new public home in the Heritage District.
An update posted yesterday by the City of Irving describes the Big State sign as an iconic Irving landmark and says restoration work is underway. The goal is to preserve the sign for future generations rather than leave it as a vanished piece of the old Main Street view.
The sign is being folded into a broader Heritage Park plan, according to the Irving Archives & Museum, which says donations are supporting a permanent home for it in the park. The Friends of the Irving Museums also launched an “Iconic Irving” T-shirt fundraiser in January, with proceeds earmarked for restoration and installation.
A Sign That Outlived The Pharmacy
Big State began as a drugstore and soda fountain in 1948, and the neon sign became part of the city's visual shorthand for old Irving. When Rick and Susan Fairless took over in 2014, they kept the Big State identity while recasting the place as a fountain and grill, and they promised the sign would stay, as CBS Texas reported.
The restaurant eventually closed on November 27, 2022, after nearly 75 years, according to CultureMap Dallas. The business was gone, but the sign continued to hang on as a kind of vertical memory until it was removed from the corner of Irving Boulevard and Main Street on January 30, 2024, local Irving Journal coverage reported.
That removal turned the preservation question into a practical one: Where can a giant, aging sign live, and how can it be made safe to light again? In 2025 budget and museum documents, the city's arts department listed a proposed $55,000 Big State Sign project, while staff reviewed the Heritage Park stage and consulted Waldrum Signs about restoration and mounting, according to city arts documents.
Heritage Park is a natural fit for the next chapter. The city describes the park as a historic downtown gathering space built around preserved and recreated pieces of Irving's past, including a stage, train depot, caboose and restored Caster Cabin, per the City of Irving's Heritage Park page.
The latest update does not give a public reinstallation date, so the Big State sign's comeback remains a work in progress. But in Irving, the old landmark has moved from “gone” to “being saved”—which is a much better kind of sign.
