The sign, removed from an Amarillo, Tex., parking lot on Jan. 26, will be reinstalled downtown later this year. (Amarillo Historical Preservation Foundation)

When a 1932 theater in Amarillo, Tex., closed in the 1970s, it became a stately office building. But across town, its 31-foot sign spent the last three decades in the parking lot of a disco-turned-nightclub.

The Paramount Theater, its exterior still intact, is scheduled to be reunited with the wayward sign this summer.

After the theater went dark in 1975, the Pueblo deco structure's interior was gutted and converted to office space. Local businessman Lowell Staph rescued the sign, along with other theater artifacts, including its chandelier, and reused them in his disco. The Paramount Disco closed, but the sign remained on a pole in the parking lot until last week.

Staph donated the sign last month to the recently revived Amarillo Historical Preservation Foundation, which had it moved to a local sign-repair shop on Jan. 26. Now the foundation, which plans to restore the sign, is waiting for an estimate before it applies for grants.

"Until we got the sign down from the pole, it was hard for anyone to tell us [how much restoration will cost]," says Wes Reeves, president of the foundation, which re-launched last year. "We don't know how much we'll have to do."

The office building's owner has agreed to allow the sign to be reinstalled, Reeves says, and his group wants to do that by August, in time for downtown Amarillo's street festival.

"The downtown area of Amarillo is beginning to come back," Reeves says, "and we thought it would be a good symbol for that sign to come back."

Want Today's News headlines delivered to your e-mail box? Sign up for our weekly e-newsletter >>