The back of the neon sign before it was converted to LED lighting. The image is mirrored so it can be read.
history under ground
neon-signs
The Osborn Block is the prettiest building you’ve never seen in the Twin Ports.
The Sivertson’s sign seems like from a different time. I’ve never seen it lit, but I bet it’s beautiful.
Pillsbury from across the Mississippi River and Stone Arch Bridge from the roof of the Washburn Crosby Elevator (aka Gold Medal Flour).
It is unclear when the ‘Superior Warehouse Company’ sign was put up, but it was likely around 1916-1917, when maps indicate it served as a dry goods warehouse, operated by Twohy-Eimon Mercantile Company. The Sivertson sign was likely added in the mid-1980s. In this image I tried to preserve the colors the bricks turn at sunset.
A taste of Superior culture.
The neon lighthouse, seen from the top of one of the silos.
After a little rain, the roof took on the color of the bright pink letters.
I couldn’t help but include this ghost sign for a demolished motel…
HDR matrix panorama. Looking from the grain elevators, now doomed, toward the city between the flour mill’s water tower and tile elevator’s neon sign, the old and new economies seem almost united. Yet the financial centers rise in reality to shadow the now-abandoned industry and manufacturing. The way of things, I’m told.
I’ll remember the neon glow fondly.
Looking out upon Mill City through the lens of FLOUR, highlighted in pink and low clouds. This sign has recently been converted into LED lighting.
Part of a vintage neon sign. I hope it’s been preserved–it reminds me of the sign that hung over my grandfather’s tv sales and repair shop in small town Minnesota.