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online commerce marketing and analytics out of all the sites to see in an american city
one of the most common yet least thought of has to be the street signage which is a shame
especially when considering the vital role they play in american cities and the signs of chicago
are of particularly worthy note while today they are standardized with white text on a green
background they were once different in fact there are people alive who would probably still
associate chicago with its trademark yellow and black signage and i'm curious to find out if any
of those signs still remain untouched so join me as we journey through chicago history to discover
the final forgotten yellow road signs i'm your host ryan socas and you're watching it's history
despite what a frequent site they are today street signs were not always a guarantee in the world's
cities for example chicago did not have any system in place to mark streets for identification
until the turn of the 20th century by then chicago had been rapidly growing into one
of the united states most popular cities for many years as more people moved into the city
these newcomers began calling for an actual way to distinguish streets however at the time the
powers that were simply had more pressing matters among them were the transportation
and water quality which we have already discussed previously on its history
with these other matters taking precedent the call for the street markers mainly fell upon deaf ears
the people of chicago would not simply stand idly by and wait to have their issue addressed
as a result citizens began to look at these issues more closely to see what was already in practice
and how it could be improved and as it turned out chicago was not alone actually let's have
a look at how cities and cultures marked out their pathways throughout history just as the
people of chicago no doubt did at this time as many things in our society do the origin
of street signs dates back to the ancient romans well actually road signs go back even further to
ancient greece and the stone pilings they used to mark intersections but rome was among the
first places to bring these markers into an urban setting by the medieval period multi-directional
signs at intersections began appearing telling travelers arriving at a crossroad where their
destination was but the street signs as we know it today would not come about until the late 1800s
along with the invention of the bicycle you see around the 1870s and 1880s newly formed
bicycle clubs petitioned for the creation of cast iron street signs to mark out directions
distance and locations it was also around this time that the temporary hazard markings began
appearing as another request by these clubs with the creation of the automobile there was an
increased demand for road signage especially as it became more widely available without street signs
a driver could easily get lost or worse they could be severely injured by a hazard they had no way of
detecting and so as it did in the ancient ages italy was the first to create a complex system
of road signs for direction and hazard indications in 1895. as the turn of the century came and went
more countries followed in italy's footsteps and by 1909 nine european countries had fully
standardized street signs however when one thinks of the automobile capital of the world especially
in the 1900s it's probably not europe that comes to mind at this time americans roads were
generally very rural and there was not much of a demand for signage anywhere outside of the urban
areas any road maintenance was done by private clubs as the federal government generally had
other interests and while outsourcing the work is an efficient way of handling the issues on paper
it wasn't that simple in practice these clubs rarely ever communicated with one another
leading to uniformity being an impossibility not to mention that these clubs often had the
promotion of their image as a priority equal to or greater than the spread of information
however the united states could manage for a time chicago had their own system in place
as well locations like neighborhoods and certain streets of importance to the city were marked out
at corners by clubs looking to make navigation easier but the reality was that most of the city
was generally unmarked causing many people to become hopelessly lost this status quo would
generally remain in place despite the desire of the people of chicago the united states continued
onward with their subpar signage as a standard that is until industrial might thoroughly broke
the status quo of america in the significant period of development known as the roaring 20s
as the 1920s arrived the automobile became an ever more present site on american streets with
the increasing motorization of american travel the state governments had no other option but to step
in and standardize their street markings report after report came in across the country analyzing
potential improvements to the road systems culminating in the publishing of the manual and
specifications for the manufactured display and erection of u.s standard road markers and signs in
1927 this document served as a guideline for the standardization of road signs in the united states
finally signaling the start of improvement around this time black text on white backgrounds or white
text on brown signs became apparent around chicago located primarily within the flourishing loop
these signs served the city well even though there just weren't all that many of them regardless they
served their purpose and made navigation of the windy city much more straightforward and i'll
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chicago's lost yellow street signs as the stock market crash of 1929 and the following great
depression brought these reforms to a screeching halt most improvements stopped altogether it would
be another six years before chicago and the nation as a whole would see any more progress
in 1935 president franklin d roosevelt oversaw the founding of the works progress administration
as part of the second new deal with the wpa in place fdr finally answered the call of the
people of chicago and approved a grant towards the application of street signs in the windy
city these signs were black text on a yellow background which is quite a significant departure
from the street signs we think of today in the united states 64 000 of these signs were brought
into the city and propped up on every corner to clearly mark every street with these improvements
navigation finally became feasible unfortunately these unique street signs were not to last as the
fires of the battles raged across the pacific and the nations suffered a day that will forever live
in infamy the united states found itself in the largest war in the history of mankind to
fulfill the needs of the arsenal of democracy scrap metal drives began opening across america
specifically in urban centers these drives were a very popular way for the people of the nation to
contribute to the war effort as spare metal was relatively easy to come by these common
metals could just as easily facilitate the construction of a gun ship airplanes
and other means of prosecuting the great crusade that was the second world war and among the medals
in the highest demand were steel and aluminum and both were common material used in street signs
so surprisingly as quickly as they entered service most of chicago's yellow and black signs found
themselves in these metal drives now transformed into arms for the troops to avenge pearl harbor
when the war came to a close chicago once again needed street signs however this time around the
government was more than willing to supply them as the post-war economy was very dynamic now the
problem was finding a new style many of these designs came into question from the pre-war
yellow and black signs to the white text on green background signs that are more familiar across
america's east coast ultimately the city decided to continue with the yellow and black markers
but with a porcelain coating to better defend against weather starting in 1950 installation
of these signs began starting from the city limits and proceeding inward towards the loop rather than
strapping these signs to poles which rusted and broke much faster the city fixed the new signs
with bolts making them much more secure finally after 50 years the people of chicago had their
street signs however present-day chicago does not have these yellow and black signs one may ask
and very reasonably what happened to them well in 1975 to standardize with the rest of the nation
the chicago department of transportation moved to replace the yellow and black signs with white text
on green backgrounds the replacement process was slow as thousands of signs needed installations on
the corners of every one of chicago streets which is vast however the department of transportation
noticed that the yellow and black signs had become quite popular among the people of chicago as a
result they proposed a deal to the everyday person of chicago that if you would like to
you can purchase one of the yellow and black signs people from across the city flocked to be a part
of this deal with some people buying many signs at once for a collection the proceeds of these
sales went right back into transportation making it a win-win for the people and the department of
transportation and for that reason to this day you can still see yellow and black road markers
hanging in homes and businesses across chicago some people crowning their collection with the
sign of the street they grew up on fast forward to 2009 and another problem appeared the crucial
weakness of these new signs were that they were all in uppercase letters which is more challenging
to read so the federal highway administration ordered that all cities adopt signage with
upper and case letters for easy reading this resulted in the final switching of chicago signs
and leaving us with what we have today so with the tens of thousands of signs placed across the city
you might find yourself wondering if every single yellow sign was removed well it just so happens
that the author of forgottenchicago.com happened upon the same question back in 2008 and according
to his article after carefully combing through basically every street in the city both major and
on the outskirts he only happened upon a few final yellow road signs on kildare avenue and 127th
street both of which as according to google earth have since disappeared but i can't accept that so
if you're from chicago share this video with every other person you know in chicago and ask them if
they have recently seen any forgotten yellow road signs that perhaps the city has forgotten to take
down and if they do email me a photo of it right away so we can do a follow-up video perhaps i will
even fly to chicago to see that sign with my own eyes so stay tuned to this story by subscribing
check out our chicago history playlist and ring the bell this is ryan socash signing off