SHRINE TO A ROAD SCHOLARTHE THING THAT BINKLEY BUILT ON I-10 IS ALLURING, ENDURING

"Michelle was quite turned off by the whole thing," says her mother. "You can imagine her viewpoint of our activity. We would try to get her to come and work in the summer, but she would have no part of it. She even chose to go way down into the wilds of Mexico one summer, because she was not going to work at The Thing. No way."
Janet adds, "I guess we were kind of weird in our time."
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@body:Binkley Prince probably borrowed the name for his attraction from the 1951 sci-fi film The Thing (From Another World). Prince's mystery object looked nothing like the cinematic Thing--actually, actor James Arness wearing a salad suit--but customers wouldn't know that until after they stopped and paid their money. Considering the creepy movie's lasting appeal (it was remade in 1982), Prince's instincts were true.

According to old-timers living east of Barstow, the first Thing manifestation was similar to the later version. Prince had the mysterious object on display, a soda fountain, souvenirs and signs, signs, signs in every direction. The most vivid memories of the place for many locals involve its collection of live animals, mostly snakes and other desert reptiles.

Auto travel in those days was slow, hot and boring. Locals say service stations or soda-pop stands sprung up every few miles along old Highway 91, the precursor to Interstate 15.

Some area residents recall a parallel amusement, located south of The Thing on old Route 66. "The Beast of Barstow" was advertised by splashy signs for many miles, just like The Thing. Suckers paid to learn that the "Beast" was a mere burro, kept in a small pen beside the souvenir shack. In this part of the country, The Thing was just another act in a stationary road show. When Highway 91 was widened into Interstate 15, the Princes were forced to move.

Binkley made certain that wouldn't happen again. When he put down roots in Arizona, it was after State Route 86 east of Benson had been widened into Interstate 10.

Janet Prince says her husband started building his new Thing enclosure near Benson before he was even sure he could lease the land. But he had already moved the family from California and had become enchanted with the Texas Canyon location. The boulder-strewn canyon the attraction borders is one of the few legitimately scenic spots on all of I-10 in Arizona. From there, Binkley Prince knew he could pull in traffic. "It was up on a hill, and tourists could see it from both directions," remembers Janet Prince. "He knew that people would want to stop and rest and snoop around. It was just an ideal location.

"Before we opened, Binkley got some cars from a junkyard and put em out front so people would think, 'Oh, they stopped there, so we'll stop, too.'"
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@body:Today, visitors still find cars parked in front of the main building, but they're not decoys. These cars belong to real souvenir hounds and curious travelers.

The attraction they find, however, differs little from Prince's original vision. The Thing itself (which Prince had first successfully displayed at his location near Death Valley) was the top-of-the-marquee tourist magnet back in the mid-1960s, of course, but the main building's huge inventory of trinkets, souvenirs and whatnots also had considerable consumer appeal. The Princes never could have survived on Thing admission fees alone.

For a time, the Arizona Thing also featured some of the live-animal menagerie that had been displayed in California. And Prince made sure that hungry or thirsty travelers also had an excuse to stop. "We had food and lemonade and soft ice cream and a bar for a while," says Janet Prince, adding that in the early days, bar patrons could play real slot machines. "That was pretty good for a while, until the law came and told us we had to remove them. That was quite a draw.

"The day that place opened, the people started stopping. We had a bunch of crazy souvenirs, real wild stuff . . . back-scratchers and things with crazy sayings on em and stuff."
Binkley Prince personally picked the inventory for the souvenir bins. He traveled to Los Angeles regularly to visit the gewgaw wholesalers. His wife also remembers her husband standing on a tall ladder, erecting his trademark billboards. He designed the signs and had painters execute his plan. "He just knew what he wanted and how to tell someone how it should look," she says. "He had no formal artistic training or anything."

As for The Thing's collection of offbeat historical curiosities, Janet Prince says, "Anything that was real unusual appealed to Binkley. He wanted it, and he wanted other people to see it."

Binkley Prince continued to dabble in law in Cochise County, but The Thing took most of his time. By 1969, he had designed and began to build a home in nearby Sonoita. But he died before its completion, and was buried in Sierra Vista's Memory Gardens cemetery.

After her husband's death, Janet Prince bought the land he had been leasing and operated The Thing alone for a time. At the end of each day, she carried the cash pouch in one hand and a pistol in the other from the shop to her mobile home. The Thing was never robbed during the Princes' ownership, but Janet was wary of living alone beside the thoroughfare.