Eatonton Ghost Signs Meeting #1

Meeting Minutes
#1 Sept 4th 2019

Attendees

Keith Rowell <knewtsdad@gmail.com>
Joseph E Norman <newport@uga.edu>

Sammy Blackwell <sammy@blackwellfurnitureco.com>

Kevin Tomson Hooper <kevintomsonhooper@gmail.com>

Mr. ___ Gregory. <_____>. (Please remind me of Mr Gregory's first name)

We looked at a total of 9 possible candidates for restoration.

1 gold ring flour --- Blackwell's

2 blue shoes --- Blackwell's

3 Coca cola --- Blackwell's

4 Hearn farm supply --- KT Hooper

5 livery # 1 --- KT Hooper

6 livery #2 --- KT Hooper

7 welcome --- Remus on chiropractor building

8 Alice's bldg --- 2nd floor above antiques

9 gold ring flour --- MAD building by railroad

Summary

Professor Norman recommended a group of signs would be more economical than just one at a time, (economy of scale) but the prospect of doing all nine led him to recommend stages. (Cost?) So there is a sweet spot that probably means doing the 3 or 4 that are easiest to reach and are the most prominent, and a smaller budget.

The steps to start are (as I understood)

1 Prof Norman provides pricing guidelines

2 we gather details of the historic signs via old photos etc.

3 some preliminary designs are mocked up for presentation

4 we attempt to find financing and grants (using preliminaries)

5 P- Norm students present final design proofs for approval

6 with design, scope, and money established we can proceed

7 with luck we get on the schedule before November (weather?)

Attachments

I've included an incomplete set of photos of the places we looked at today. I'll follow up with the remaining photos that were shared by Mr. Gregory and the missing locations.

Thanks everyone for your time

It was a hot day for walking around in the sun.

Next

Collect photos and research historic accuracy etc.

Keith Rowell

Reference about Blackwell Buildings

https://www.blackwellfurnitureco.com/about.html

Color it Bright article

https://lakeoconeelivingmag.com/?p=2209

Existing ghost signs downtown

We know this was a "gold ring flour" sign but can find no reference to how it looked. We know it had a ring image, and the words "gold ring", "the quality is always the same".

It looks like the selz royal blue shoes sign covered the "Gold Ring Flour" sign. The S in Selz and the word "royal" were to the left of the vertical yellow border.

The coke sign is of the "drink coke" variety. Older, from the 40's?

I heard once that there was a "livery" sign here but the large faded letters seem to be another "Selz shoes". The "Hearn farm supply" sign may have had a symbol in the middle.