Halls Ferry & Sundown, Jennings MO
On the northwest tip of the Halls Ferry Circle stands a 1961-vintage building that was originally a Porter Paints store. As a kid in the backseat as we swung around The Circle, 2 buildings always got my attention: the Katz drugstore (now a Save-A-Lot) and this building when it was still all bright orange and cream.
It’s a huge plus that the building is still in use. A closer look at the vertical tower shows the covering coat of paint peeling away, and the classic Porter Paint logo peeking through.
Shortly after having snapped these photos, I got an e-mail from the manager of the Porter Paints store at Hampton & Eichelberger in South St. Louis, MO.
His store looked like this (above) before the remodel. After a green standing seam metal cap was placed atop this retail strip, the lower half is all that remains of the iconic Porter tower. Do you want to know what became of the rectangle sign seen to the right?
It’s now in my backyard! The store manager had salvaged the sign during the remodel, and held onto it for all this time. Having run across this blog entry, he thought I might be interested in having it. He was absolutely correct about that. Huge gold stars to Jonathan Tag for
A. being so cool as to save the sign
B. finding me through a Google search and
C. giving me the sign.
Thank you, Mr. Tag!!
I am currently running the Porter Paints in St Petersburg, FL, and it still has the original PP column and sign. The top is starting to fade, so they will probably change over to the new logo soon. Too bad, once a store’s missed the third logo change, you’d think that it would have to be left for posterity! I recently went around the country with the company, and maybe 5% of the stores have this type of sign still. The Porter store I left about a year ago had a very nice Harvest Gold refrigerator in the back and I’m tempted to go steal it from them for a “numbers matching” look!
That is indeed very cool. Has anyone FOUND the old Midtown Arbys cowboy hat sign yet?