Looks like the Astroworld auction was a smashing success.
With about 500 people vying for AstroWorld mementos, participants were paying $300 and $400 for small directional signs that bore only the names of AstroWorld rides.Houstonian Robert Thomas wowed the crowd when he got in a bidding war with other potential buyers and ended up paying $12,500 for a huge Fiberglas longhorn that once adorned the top of the park's Western Smokehouse restaurant.
"I think he's crazy," Thomas' wife, Heidi, said after the bidding ended.
Thomas saw the bull Friday, the first day of bidding on the relics of AstroWorld, which closed its doors after 37 years in business.
Thomas said people soon will see his prize mounted on the roof of his Space City Hot Shot trucking service in the 14000 block of Reeveston in north Houston.
Melissa Dees paid $1,800 for the sign that stood by the famed Greezed Lightnin' ride and warned people of the "turbulent" nature of the ride, with its "high speeds, steep drops, inverted loops and sudden stops."
"I rode Greezed Lightnin' a lot of times and I was here for the millionth ride," said Dees, a Harris County employee and a former AstroWorld worker. "It's a very important ride for me, and it's the only description sign there is."