Some signs disappear slowly. Paint lifts from brick. A letter fades until it’s only a shadow of itself. Then a new building goes up, or the old one comes down, and the sign is gone.
I look for the ones that remain. They turn up on brick walls, along older streets, and beside roads where the landscape opens wide enough to see what has been standing there for years. Colorado has its share of these small survivals. You don’t always find them by searching a map. Sometimes you find them by taking the slower road and paying attention.
A familiar sight on the roads to Steamboat Springs
On the roads leading into Steamboat Springs, and near Walden, you may spot the signs for F.M. Light & Sons. They’re part of the journey: familiar roadside markers pointing toward a store that has been in Steamboat Springs since 1905.
There’s a history behind them. In 1928, Clarence Light erected 260 signs within a 150-mile radius of Steamboat Springs; the total later grew to 300. The signs were hand-lettered, and some began in neighboring Grand and Moffat counties.
These aren’t ghost signs in the strict sense. They still advertise the store. But they belong to the same landscape of painted lettering and roadside memory: signs made to be seen from a passing car, now carrying decades of travel and familiarity along with their message.
Look slowly, not just for the sign
A ghost sign can be easy to miss. It may be high on a wall above a newer storefront, partly hidden by a tree, or visible only from the other side of the street. The paint might be almost gone, but the words are still there if the light falls across them just right.
I try not to rush past. I look at the brick beneath the paint, the way a letter crosses a mortar line, the colors that remain. The sign is only one part of the photograph. The wall, the sidewalk, a planter of flowers beside a faded advertisement — they all belong to the same moment.
That’s what I noticed when I photographed this old brick wall. The painted letters have weathered, but they haven’t entirely let go. Beside them, white flowers spill from a planter. The wall keeps its old message; the flowers keep growing. Neither seems to mind the other.
Click here for image optionsBring a camera — and give yourself time