Midtown lost a landmark last week. The 129-year-old funeral home W.F. Gormley & Sons took down its iconic neon sign — one of the oldest remaining on the grid — Aug. 18 in preparation for its move to Land Park. The sign, a stylized maroon scroll emblazoned with the name of the business and the all-important words “Parking Area,” had been in place for nearly a century.

Managing Editor Dakota Morlan wrote a profile of the funeral home for Comstock’s 2024 Family Business issue. W.F. Gormley was founded in 1897 by William Francis Gormley, then coroner and sheriff of the city, in “an imposing stone structure that had a livery and stable for a horse-drawn hearse,” Dakota wrote. It has been in its current Midtown location since 1924, and the sign was installed in the 1930s, PBS KVIE reports. The nonprofit Sacramento Modern also associates it with work done by the local company Ledbetter in the 1950s. 

Now in its fifth generation of family ownership, W.F. Gormley & Sons has helped countless families celebrate the lives of their loved ones, both at the funeral home and at churches and other locations around the region. While it accommodates all faiths, it has a notable stronghold in Sacramento’s Catholic community and even played a role in the beatification process of a local venerable (two steps below canonization in the Catholic Church’s sainthood process): the late Sacramento Auxiliary Bishop Alphonse Gallegos, killed by a car in 1991. As part of his bid for sainthood, the Gormleys took charge of the exhumation, verification and reinterment of his remains in 2010, earning the business a papal blessing.

For many Sacramentans, however, W.F. Gormley & Sons’ neon sign is less associated with death than with beginnings. With its placement on Capitol Avenue between 20th and 21st streets, it served as a kind of welcome mat for the liveliest part of Midtown, flanked by the legendary clubs of Lavender Heights. Its yellow glass tubes came alive every night in tandem with the neighborhood.

My usual bicycle route to Midtown from my home in Curtis Park — within the glow of another iconic neon sign, Gunther’s Jugglin’ Joe — took me invariably past W.F. Gormley & Sons. On a bicycle the Sacramento grid can feel like a medieval walled city, bordered by nearly impregnable layers of elevated freeways and moatlike stroads. When I reached the Gormley scroll, I knew I had reached its core.

The funeral home is not moving far outside the grid — its new location is on Riverside Boulevard in a building previously occupied by another more-than-century-old funeral home, the George L. Klumpp Chapel of Flowers. The sign and other decorative features from the former location will be reinstalled there. The neon sign will then overlook the Historic City Cemetery, arguably a more appropriate backdrop than Sacramento’s nightlife district. It will remain a fixture of the city, if no longer a Midtown beacon.

But for me, the sign will remain a waypost — Riverside happens to be my route to another favorite grid neighborhood, Southside Park. I look forward to seeing it come alight again.

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