BOULDER, Colo.—Can a typo become historical?
Boulder officials are wondering after getting complaints about removing a road sign that mispelled maintenance, the Camera reports.
The sign, which said “No Winter Maintance,” stood for at least 20 years near Gold Hill. In addition to the typo, it had become the target of bullets.
“It’s part of the history of the area,” said Edie Eilender, a Gold Hill resident. “It’s the quirkiness of it. It’s been there and is part of the background.”
John Mosher, the county’s sign shop boss, said there is no record of when it was installed. When it was taken down the metal was recycled.
“We got a call from someone last fall wanting to know if they could have it,” Mosher said. “They wanted it for some historical society. It was too late. The sign had already been recycled.”
Mosher said the sign was replaced because it was old and had lost its reflective surface—not to fix the typo. He said he didn’t know whether the typo was a mistake or accidental.
“It could have been a mistake, like the pictures you see of the road-painting guys who misspelled ‘school,'” Mosher said.
Beth Harris, of Erie, remembers first seeing the sign in the mid-1980s when she was a graduate student at the University of Colorado. She took a picture of it in 2004 while on a fall-colors drive through the foothills.
Harris said now that it’s gone, she’s glad she has the photo.
“The sign felt right, it felt OK, part of Colorado history,” Harris said “You think about the old days when not everyone was literate. Maybe not everything was spelled right, but everyone knew what it meant.”
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Information from: Camera,
