The Thing?

The Thing, also known as The Thing Museum, is a roadside attraction in Arizona, advertised extensively by signs along Interstate 10 between El Paso, Texas, and Tucson. The object on display, presented as a mummified mother and child, is believed to have been made by the exhibit creator Homer Tate for sideshows. The former lawyer Thomas Binkley Prince bought it in the mid-twentieth century and quickly built a tourist attraction around it. Prince died in 1969, and his wife Janet ran the attraction for many years; the site is now owned by Bowlin Travel Centers, Inc. Despite its remoteness the attraction has been popular, appearing in several tourist guides and in news stories and reports.

Where it is

The Thing? is a museum near Dragoon Mountains, in Cochise County. It is one of the museums in this database, and appears in the statewide ranking of Arizona attractions.

How this ranking was reached

No official visitor count is published for The Thing?, so its score rests on public interest and tourism significance, and is capped below the level a measured attraction can reach. That is why the medium confidence above is not higher. The weighting is explained in full on the methodology page, and every axis is broken out under Facts and sources at the foot of this page.

Note on the data: No official visitor count is published for this attraction.

Sources

• Public interest: Wikimedia pageviews (en.wikipedia, human traffic), 2024
• Coordinates and designations: Wikidata(opens in a new tab)
• County: U.S. Census geography via FCC Area API, resolved from coordinates

Record last verified 2026-08-12.