CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Nearly 100 years after they were first painted, a group of Chicago sign painters hope to save three recently unearthed, hand-painted signs that are scheduled for demolition on Aug. 22.
One of those leading the charge to preserve the incredibly well-preserved signs, Kelsey McClellan, said the advertisements were painted onto the former home of a Swedish immigrant, Martin Roth, who owned a nearby gas station.
“Roth had built this house in, I think, 1890,” McClellan said. “One of the reasons why this wooden building has an advertisement on it is because next door to his home was his business, which was a gas station.”
McClellan said they dated the Shell sign to the 1920s, while another sign advertising Ward’s Bread — which later became Wonder Bread — was dated to the 1930s.
The ads were revealed to a new generation of Chicagoans back in July 2022, when they were uncovered by a demolition crew.
Roth’s former property, which includes the site of the old gas station, will be turned into a multi-use, six-story property developed by the Macon Group.
Fortunately, McClellan said, the Macon Group was a former client of her and her husband Andrew McClellan, who own Heart and Bone Signs in Chicago. Kelsey McClellan said they were able to contact the developers, who agreed to hold off on bulldozing the building until Aug. 22.
Until then, the McClellans and a host of other Chicago sign painters are racing to preserve the signs.
Earlier this month, they formed a GoFundMe to help pay for the cost of labor, scaffolding, removal costs, and temporary storage. It has raised a little more than 50% of its $20,000 goal.
McClellan said they plan to dismantle the signs, wooden slat by wooden slat, this week.
The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati has offered a permanent home for the Ward Bread advertisement, but the Shell sign is yet to find a home.
“We would love to keep at least one sign in Chicago,” McClellan said. “We’re very grateful that one is about to go to Cincinnati, but it being so important to Chicago sign history, it would be really wonderful to have one in Chicago.”
McClellan said she’s loved seeing how excited the Chicago community has been about these signs.
“We still have these pieces of evidence of what people did then, and it still influences what we do today, whether you’re painting signs or making advertisements,” she said. “It’s a really cool, important thing that connects us to our past that all too often just gets demolished.”
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