Seattle's Historic Signs: Pink Elephant Car Wash

The circus has come to town! At the corner of Seattle’s Denny Way and Seventh Avenue, you’ll find this ginormous, pink, twirling elephant sign made out of neon from the 1950s. What a city keeps is as telling of a community’s spirit as what it creates anew isn’t it? In Seattle, there is a fondness for the fun and the quirky.

Three brothers Archie, Dean and Eldon Anderson invented an automatic car wash and in the mid-1950s they opened this location- their second. Only six years later, the Space Needle would become the Pink Elephant’s neighbor. The world would drive by this intersection on its way to the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair.

According to the company’s website, this car wash has been visited by sports figures, celebrities and politicians. It’s rumored that Elvis stopped by to get his Cadillac cleaned while filming “It Happened at the World’s Fair.”