Driving on State Street in Salt Lake City, it’s hard to miss the huge sign for Coachman’s Dinner & Pancake House on the southeastern corner at the intersection with 1300 South.

When the long-empty 1960s-era diner was demolished last week, with the sign left standing, a Reddit post was full of questions about what would happen to it.

Well, curious Redditors and fans of Utah relics can rejoice.

Hoang Nguyen, a state lawmaker and managing partner of Sapa Investment Group, which owns the Coachman’s site, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday that she was working with the Liberty Wells Community Council and Preservation Utah to save the sign.

“We recognize that there’s a lot of sentimental value around the sign,” said Nguyen, who represents parts of eastern Salt Lake City in the Utah House. “So, what we’ve decided to do with the sign is we’re donating it back to the community.”

Margaret Coppin, chair of the Liberty Wells Community Council, told The Tribune that the sign would be preserved, renovated and restored in another location. But where it will end up is still a big question mark.

“We’ve got a lot of ideas sort of swirling around,” Coppin said.

She said the first step would be removing the sign from the Coachman’s lot, so Sapa Investment Group can move forward with their plans to develop that corner.

“Then we’ll put it in storage for a little while, hopefully until we can find a more permanent home for it,” Coppin said.

The Coachman’s sign is a “landmark,” she said, one that designates the entrance to the Liberty Wells neighborhood.

“I think it holds a sense of place for our community,” Coppin said.

‘They don’t make signs like that anymore’

Utah-based artist Stephanie Swift — who creates digital illustrations of old signs in the Beehive State, Colorado, Texas and Nebraska, where she’s from — said the news about the Coachman’s sign was “awesome.”

“Everybody just had their own family history or friend history with Coachman’s,” said Swift, who produces her digital work under the name Pretty Little Pixel. “... If you had been around at a certain time, if you know, you know. That was the hangout place, that was just one of those places that made Salt Lake City, Salt Lake City.”

Not all signs are so lucky, she said.

When the all-night diner Bill and Nada’s was being demolished, someone Swift knew told her he had asked the demolition crew what they were going to do with the old neon sign.

When the crew said they weren’t going to do anything with it, he told them he’d be back in 15 minutes with a truck and that he’d pay cash for it.

When he returned, the sign was crumpled up and tossed in a dumpster.

“The idea of something like the Coachman’s sign just being thrown in the garbage and just forgotten and being replaced by something generic and beige is sad, because it is a different-looking sign,” Swift said. “They don’t make signs like that anymore.”

Other classic signs in Salt Lake City have been saved when the businesses they were advertising were gone — including the Snelgrove’s double-scoop ice cream cone in Sugar House and the Salt Lake Costume Co. sign, which now sits above the entrance to an apartment building at 1100 East and 1700 South.

Coppin said the Coachman’s sign is unique because of its “incorporation of different design aesthetics, the lamp through the center of the sign, integrated with neon and other lights, is just a unique and special design — even from the time of the ’50s, when neon signs were quite common."