Curly the Clown has greeted people at this Dairy Queen since 1959, but not for much longer

After decades of beckoning visitors to the Shelbyville Dairy Queen, Curly the Clown is leaving the premises.

For more than 60 years customers have stopped at the Dairy Queen in Shelbyville to enjoy cool treats while taking in the historic signs at the 1614 E. Michigan Road building, often using Curly as a nostalgic photo backdrop.

International Dairy Queen Inc. has directed the store to remove the signs by Dec. 31, the store told visitors this past summer.

Customers and architecture enthusiasts responded with reviews and social media posts encouraging the company to allow the neon signs to remain, particularly a rare one featuring a clown mascot from the brand’s very early days.

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Curly the Clown was on neon signs in the 1940s and 1950s, and there are thought to be only three original character signs in existence, according to Mashed.com.

The double-sided clown sign depicts the smiling Curly standing behind a giant soft-serve sundae and holding an ice cream cone in one hand.

Collector car and roadside art specialist Mecum Auctions sold a similar 9-foot-tall sign for $26,000 in January 2023, describing the artifact as one of only seven Curly the Clown signs ever made for Dairy Queen. Another brought a bid of $40,000 in a 2022 Indianapolis auction and one was sold for $15,340 at a Wisconsin auction in June 2023.

Also being removed from the Shelbyville property is a rooftop neon sign with the words Dairy Queen and a soft serve ice cream cone.

Both signs have been at the walk-up ice cream shop since it opened in 1959.

The store, owned by Tipton-based franchisee J.D. Restaurants since 2006, last spring began alerting customers of the directive to drop the signs but has been mum to media.

The move follows the 2019 start of Dairy Queen’s brand refresh, focusing on the Grill & Chill dine-in stores that serve hot foods rather than walk-up dessert-only treat stands such as the Shelbyville operation.

Josh Lipnik, who has an interest in vintage neon signs and posts about architecture with a focus on mid-century design on his X account spotted the Curly sign while road-tripping through the area and spread the word to his followers that the corporation wanted them removed.

“I've seen a million Dairy Queens and I've never seen that before. So that definitely did pique my interest,” he said.

Upon investigating he learned that the clown sign is likely one of, if not the only, such signs posted at a functioning Dairy Queen.

Longtime stores closed, signs lost

The neon Dairy Queen sign that sits atop the store also is rare, but not on the level of the Curly art.

The first Dairy Queen opened in 1940 in Joliet, Illinois in 1940 and International Dairy Queen Inc. formed in 1962. International Dairy Queen has more than 7,000 locations.

The company introduced its first DQ restaurant with Next Generation design in 2019 and has seen long-time stands close in response to its standardization efforts.

A Merritt Island, Florida, Dairy Queen, in business since 1965, closed its doors after owners complained about corporate mandates.

The company last May snatched the franchise of a Carbondale, Illinois, store that had the old neon rooftop and opened in 1952 when the franchisee refused to make mandated changes to the menu and building, including getting a new sign. The operator reopened the store as an independent ice cream shop in July.

Meanwhile, a Dairy Queen stand in Lombard, opened in 1953, has a similar neon sign designated a historic landmark in the village.

Standardization is common among fast food chains, but the moves can strip older stores of nostalgia-evoking accents, said Lipnik, who is based in Detroit, Michigan.

J.D. Restaurants, which owns about a dozen eateries, has not said when the Shelbyville signs would be removed or what would become of them.

International Dairy Queen representatives did not respond to IndyStar’s requests for comment.

“For a lot of these, especially for a smaller city like Shelbyville, this is the ice cream shop in town and everyone in town has some memory there, and there's sort of this local unique angle to it that they're the only ones that have this sign,” Lipnik said.

They're even important to corporate history, said architectural historian Martin Treu, author of “Signs, Streets and Storefronts.”

“They’re important remnants of the past and they're important remnants of Dairy Queen history ... whether they think so or not," Treu said. “They’re community landmarks. ... They keep a piece of history of the street that's been changing. For a lot of people, they’re nostalgia. And it's part of American design history.”

Contact IndyStar reporter Cheryl V. Jackson at cheryl.jackson@indystar.com or 317-444-6264. Follow her on Twitter:@cherylvjackson.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Shelbyville Dairy Queen can't use Curly the Clown sign, company says