I remember a job where I had forgot to bring anything for control points way out in the middle of nowhere and a long drive. There was a pile of used shotgun shells...my mind starts spinning....in soft ground, they make nice control points.
fingerboard
> Round here you used to see these along logging roads. The nail on the township diagram indicates the corner the sign references:
So the raised letters were probably painted originally and served to protect the wood under them from weathering as quickly as the unpainted body of the sign. Is that WPA-vintage signage or newer?
fingerboard
From what I recall from when these were more prevalent, it seems like the signs were painted all white, or maybe a flat silver, with black lettering. And yes, the raised letters are apparently the result of paint protecting the lettering while the rest of the sign weathered away. Maybe the black paint was more durable or, because the lettering had two coats, black on white, it was twice as protected. I’m not sure when the signs were made. They were for the benefit of loggers, foresters and fire fighters. Could have been a WPA project.
On the sign below the same raised lettering effect can be seen, although the paint still survives and the background weathering is not as pronounced. This sign was more protected from the elements owing to the fact that the top of the tree (western juniper) had been blown over and protected the sign (it also protected it from growing legs and ending up in someones garage). This was along a 1908 wagon road between Bend and Redmond which was used until the early 1920s. It’s a pioneer billboard of sorts since Skuse Hardware went out of business in 1918:
