Category Archives: Oklahoma

Ghost Signs, Illinois, Oklahoma

Ghost Sign Harvest #3

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I’m so busy driving, photographing, and downloading photos that I don’t have much time to devote to posting.  Here are several from Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois.

I had been to Muskogee OK before, but, as usual, there were plenty of more signs to photograph.

 

There is a very nice sign on the wall, I think for tobacco, in this alley in Joplin, MO. I had photographed it last October, but there were bad shadows.  I was hoping for overcast, but it cleared up before i got there.  Since this is a south facing wall, and since it is past spring equinox, by waiting for the sun to “move” slightly north of the E-W orientation of the wall, I was able to photograph it in complete shade.  I wasn’t the only photographer out there.

There is a sign for Mail Pouch Tobacco in St. Elmo, Illinois, that appears to have been partially repainted.

 

One of the main ghost signs I wanted to photograph on this trip is this recently exposed sign for America’s Cup Coffee in Mattoon, IL.  I had been to Mattoon before, but it was still covered. I found it on Google Street View.

I shot close to one hundred individual images using my telephoto to stitch together and “preserve” this sign

I had photographed this other sign in Mattoon on a previous visit, but the lighting was better on this visit.

Ghost Signs, Oklahoma, Texas

Ghost Sign Harvest #2 – Texas Panhandle and Oklahoma

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I’m picking up some ghost signs that I had missed before, and doing a couple of reshoots.  Here is a beautiful ghost sign, in Nash, OK, for Kirkendall Shoes, including E-Z Walker brand.  I originally found it using Google Street View.  I had photographed this sign last October, but I needed to reshoot it with a nice overcast sky, so yesterday I got just that.  It required photographing it over a fence from both sides.

I really like the colors on this sign.  I also had to shoot around the metal shed.  I’ll assemble all of the images when I get home and make a single straight-on version.

There are plenty of other less attractive but still interesting signs, like this one for Chrysler-De Soto.

One of the main crops in the Texas Panhandle is cotton.  Here is an active Cotton Gin mill in Bula, TX.

And, of course, every town has its own Grain Elevator, like this one in Hitchcock, TX.

I drove over a rise at 75mph (the speed limit!) and almost had pork cutlets for dinner.  A mom Peccary with four piglets were right in the middle of the highway.  Fortunately, I was able to stop, and knew that there was no one behind me for miles. Mom finally got them to scramble off the road, so all ended well.

Another day of dark skies and severe storms illustrated by this aviation Vortac against the farmlands in the Panhandle.