BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – One of the holy grails of honky-tonk has been discovered, and it’s coming home. A seven-year-old mystery has been solved. Case closed.
The neon-trimmed Trout’s sign, an artifact of local Americana that hung over North Chester Avenue for decades, has been recovered.
Its legal owner, the Kern County Museum, unveiled the long-sought sign at a press conference Friday afternoon. Museum Executive Director Mike McCoy, with the help of benefactor Chris Hayden, had offered a $10,000 reward for the sign’s return and a Gold Country man stepped forward to claim it on the condition he remain anonymous.
“The gentleman that – gentleman, I’m sorry,” McCoy said, correcting his terminology, “ the individual that stole the sign, they did not get any financial remuneration on this.”
He was referring to former Trout’s general manager Allan Thomas Rockwell.
For 75 years, that huge, flopping neon outlined fish welcomed guests to the now-defunct Oildale saloon – a place many came to regard as the last surviving country music saloon from the golden age of the Bakersfield Sound – the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. And therein lies the sign’s value.