All Over The Map: Searching for ‘ghost signs of the air’
Jul 12, 2024, 1:22 PM | Updated: Sep 27, 2024, 6:20 am
In the early days of aviation a century ago, an oil company painted town names in giant letters on top of their buildings to help pilots find their way.
Aviation historian Lee Corbin joined “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio LIVE for this week’s edition of “All Over The Map.” Corbin explained the origins of the rudimentary navigation system and said that if you know where to look, you might be able to spot one of these “Ghost Signs of the Air” still on duty in a few Washington towns.
Feliks Banel: What are these airway signs, exactly? Paint a little picture if you can.
Lee Corbin: Well, back in the early 1920s, the Army Air Service (the precursor to the United States Air Force) wanted to set up “airways” – essentially virtual highways for aviators – across the country. And in order to mark these airways, they encouraged the towns to start painting the name of the town on either the railroad station or some other large building in the city so that (aviators) could follow these airways. And it worked for a while, but they kind of ran out of money to help pay for this. And so eventually what happened was Standard Oil of California stepped in and they kind of took over because they basically had a fuel station in every little town in the country. So it was easy for them, with a few gallons of paint, to paint the name of the town up on their station roof.
Banel: I was thinking about this (and) I think that’s what you see in the opening sequence of (the old TV show) “Green Acres” when it says ‘Green Acres’ on the roof of the barn. It’s a version of that.
Corbin: Yeah, very, very similar.
Banel: Now, at some point, when radio navigation takes over and other kinds of electronics, these things must have been outmoded. Were they officially sort of done away with or did they stop maintaining them at some point in the past?
Corbin: Actually, the funny thing is, they were still using them up to World War II. And then as soon as the war started, they had to paint over a lot of because they didn’t want to identify any town during the war (and inadvertently aid an invading enemy). They weren’t sure what was going to happen. So (the airsign program) kind of picked up again after the war, but not quite as much as it had been (before).
Banel: Are any of these still in existence or being actively preserved? Can you spy these anywhere in Washington that you know of?
Corbin: Well, I found about two dozen photos. They were all taken around 1967 at Standard Oil facilities, so they were still being maintained well into the 1960s. And I found about five that you could still see if you know where to look, you can still see the outline, and in some cases are pretty good (with a) replication of the actual name of the town.
Banel: Some of the ones you sent me photos over (were) Ellensburg and Cle Elum and Sprague and places like that. It seems like the roofs were low enough that you wouldn’t have to be up in an airplane — you could actually see them from the ground. Are there any specific ones nowadays you can still see here in 2024?
Corbin: If you’re driving around Cle Elum, if you know where to look, you can still see that one without too much trouble. I believe the Sprague one is pretty visible from the ground level.
Banel: Lee, thanks for joining us live here on “All Over The Map” on KIRO Newsradio.
You can hear Feliks Banel every Wednesday and Friday morning on Seattle’s Morning News with Dave Ross and Colleen O’Brien. Read more from Feliks here and subscribe to The Resident Historian Podcast here. If you have a story idea or a question about Northwest history, please email Feliks. You can also follow Feliks on X, formerly known as Twitter.
