On August 20, 1958, the “Columbia Missourian” newspaper published a photo of a sign that was put up anonymously that morning on Third Street in response to Columbia’s road naming controversy getting national attention. The joke sign is one of my favorite pieces of whimsy to come out of the Miss Mizzou story. Let’s take a look at the old photo and compare it to a modern photo of the same intersection:

IMAGE: Third Street and Highway 40, Columbia Missourian, August 20, 1958. Used with permission.

IMAGE: Providence Road and Business Loop 70, summer 2014. Photo by J.B. Winter.

This intersection has gone through quite a change in over 62 years if you compare the photographs. The telephone poles in the background seem like they’ve been moved, both roads have been widened, and the fire hydrant in the fore-ground is a different style. (Has it perhaps been moved as well?) Within the last couple of years they’ve added the wheelchair accessible structures to both sides of the street and have added crossing signals for pedestrians as well. It’s hard to see any similarities between the photos aside from the trees in the background.

One more note about the 1958 photo: The person in the car is Columbia native Bob Martin, a MU student who graduated in 1959 and lettered in golf. He is a former city champion, city senior champion and state senior champion golfer. You can read some of his writing up on the Missouri Golf Post website.