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Wednesday, May 31, 2023

Complaint

 May 3, 1924, Menasha Record

The sign in question is pictured below:  


As you can see from the photo, the sign was at the start of Washington Street leading into Menasha, just past Nicolet Boulevard, leading the writer above to complain that it then appeared all of Nicolet Boulevard belonged to Neenah.  

We featured this sign in the Menasha book in 2012, saying at the time that little was known about it and why it was removed, etc.  Since then, I have finally located the following article which gives some insight into its removal:


March 4,1936, Menasha Record

The second to the last paragraph outlines how a vote was taken and the measure won by the vote of 5 to 4 to take down the sign after the scheduled August 1936 American Legion convention held that year.  Attributing concerns to its disrepair and the danger of falling ice from the sign, it looks as if any efforts to win back favor for keeping it up were doomed from the start.  Although I am unsure as to when the sign was originally erected, the writer's letter to the editor dated in 1924 cites the disrepair of the sign, which implies it must have been up there for several years to get into that condition. One day, I will find the entire story of that sign, but until then, it works as a strange but enticing footnote to Menasha history.  

Many thanks to long time blog reader Kris Cowling for reminding me about the sign and inspiring me to further research it.

1 comment:

  1. Great research, David! What a treasure it would be to find that sign in some forgotten corner of a city storage building! Alas, I suspect it was sent to scrap yard...

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