Soon after I wrote about the hidden remains of Holiday Inn’s old Great Sign in New Castle, reader decotriumph reminded me that the H&K Motel in Anderson was another old Holiday Inn. I used to pass it every day on the way to work and was aware of its provenance, but I’d never paid attention to the sign out front. D’oh! It, too, is another heavily-modified Great Sign.
The H&K Motel opened as Holiday Inn at 583 Broadway in late 1960. The 55-unit building, shaped sort of like a capital “G,” featured a courtyard swimming pool1 and a restaurant2. The motel itself was typical of early sixties designs with railings and exterior room entrances, but its sign was a true landmark.
Designed at the behest of Holiday Inn founder Kemmons Wilson, Holiday Inn’s iconic “Great Sign” was impossible to overlook. Towering nearly fifty feet above the roadside, it featured an emerald-green panel with glowing white neon lettering, elaborate theater-style neon tubing and chasing lights, a brilliant yellow starburst, a blinking arrow, and a changeable marquee that advertised vacancies and special events.
The Great Sign was a true roadside spectacle. Visible from far down the highway, it became one of the most recognizable symbols of American travel. Working under Wilson’s direction, Gene Barber and Roland Alexander of Memphis-based Balton & Sons Sign Company created the design that came to define the Holiday Inn brand and helped shape the golden age of roadside architecture3.
Unfortunately, Holiday Inn on Broadway in Anderson didn’t last long. When it was built in 1960, State Road 9 was routed along Broadway and was the primary route into Anderson. By 1962, a new bypass, Scatterfield Road, had been completed east of town4. Not long after, the Indiana Highway Commission confirmed that the new Interstate 69 would angle through Madison County and that an extension of Scatterfield would connect to it5.
Holiday Inn made a beeline to the new interchange and abandoned the site on Broadway. A $500,000, 120-unit motel quickly rose on Scatterfield6 that eventually evolved into a Holidome7. It was demolished around 2013 to make way for a Honda dealership and I don’t have a photo8. Fortunately, Anderson’s first Holiday Inn didn’t sit idle for long.
Soon after Holiday Inn cut bait for the new interchange, the motel on Broadway reopened as the Kings Crown Inn. Aside from its fifty-five guestrooms and pool, the place featured a cocktail lounge, coffee shop, and Starlite Room9. Later, the Kings Crown Inn became the Kings Inn. In 1971, it was one of 24,000 restaurants, motels, and resorts listed in the thirteenth edition of the Mobil Travel Guide10.
Both the Kings Crown Inn and the Kings Inn featured heavily modified versions of the Holiday Inn Great Sign that became landmarks in their own right, complete with a striking horizontal chevron, several sub-signs, and much of the original steel structure. While its appearance had been significantly modernized, the sign’s proportions and unmistakable elements still revealed its Holiday Inn origins. Rather than tearing down these massive roadside icons after leaving the chain, the owners simply re-skinned them, preserving remarkable survivors of one of America’s most recognizable motel sign designs.
The building itself remained known as Kings Inn through at least 198811. By 1994, it assumed its current identity as the H&K Motel12. Over time, the swimming pool was filled in and the property gradually lost many of the amenities that once catered to highway travelers.
Even so, the base, bones, and changeably copy portion of one remarkable piece of the motel’s past still survives: long after the Holiday Inn name disappeared, a version of its towering sign continued to stand watch over the roadside. Even in compromised form, the H&K sign is a reminder of an era when a glowing Great Sign promised weary motorists a comfortable night’s stay just ahead.
Sources Cited
1 New Motel May Open October, Owners State (1960, September 16). The Anderson Herald. p. 2.
2 Builders to be Guests (1961, September 22). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 7.
3 Conway, M. (2026, April). The Holiday Inn Great Sign. Great Sign. Web. Retrieved June 6, 2026.
4 Extensive State Highway Work In County Outlined (1962, May 20). The Anderson Herald. p. 1.
5 (See footnote 4).
6 Holiday Inn To Be Constructed (1966, March 17). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 8.
7 Holiday Inn (1989, February 8). The Pendleton Times-Post. p. 9.
8 Parcel 48-12-32-600-068.000-003 (2026). Office of the Assessor. Madison County [Anderson]. Web. Retrieved July 7, 2026.
9 Kings Crown Inn Features Hospitality, Fine Foods (1964, January 19). The Anderson Herald. p. 26.
10 Kings Inn Makes Guide Book Listing (1971, April 7). The Anderson Daily Bulletin. p. 17.
11 Crime stoppers (1988, November 15). The Alexandria Times-Tribune. p. 3.
12 Election Claims (1994, June 25). The Elwood Call-Leader. p. 8.
