The McDonald's Sign, also known as McDonald's Store #433 Sign, in Pine Bluff,

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

, United States, is one of only a few surviving examples of a single-arch

McDonald's McDonald's Corporation is an American Multinational corporation, multinational fast food chain store, chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechri ...

sign. The sign was erected in 1962 and remained at its original location until 2007. That year, McDonald's Store #433 moved and the sign was renovated and moved to the new location. The McDonald's sign was added to the U.S.

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 2006.

History

Before McDonald's Store #433 was built on South Main Street in Pine Bluff, the neighborhood was mostly residential. The area began to change as the mid-20th century approached and commercial enterprises began to appear in the area. The

was constructed at 1300 South Main Street in 1962 and followed the standard corporate design for the era: a red, white and yellow motif with

arch An arch is a vertical curved structure that spans an elevated space and may or may not support the weight above it, or in case of a horizontal arch like an arch dam, the hydrostatic pressure against it. Arches may be synonymous with vaul ...

es projecting through the roof (owned by Mike Retzer). McDonald's Store #433 opened on July 3, 1962, and remained in operation until it was announced in August 2007 that the store would close by the end of the year.Duke, Richard.
Historic sign may not move with restaurant
" ''Pine Bluff Commercial'' ( Pine Bluff, Arkansas), August 16, 2007, accessed April 22, 2008. A new location was constructed in the 2800 block of South Olive Street, about two miles from the original location. Initially, it was unknown what the sign's fate would be; by September, it was announced that the sign would move to the new location. As the date of closure approached in September the sign was dismantled and transported to Skylite Sign & Neon in Mabelvale, Arkansas, for renovation work which lasted through October 2007.Nugent, Jeannie.
Restoring the golden arch
" ''Pine Bluff Commercial'' ( Pine Bluff, Arkansas), October 27, 2007, accessed April 22, 2008.

Design

The McDonald's sign in Pine Bluff represents a transition between the "Speedee" sign and the now-ubiquitous double golden arches. The design featured in Pine Bluff was used for one year and was relatively rare even when it was being used, even more so today. The first double golden arches sign appeared just three months after the Pine Bluff store opened.Linn, Mike.
McDonald's gets one-arch, '62 sign to go
, '' Arkansas Democrat Gazette'', September 25, 2007, accessed April 22, 2008. Typical of the single-arch style from McDonald's early years, the Pine Bluff sign has plastic panels held in a metal frame and red advertising space midway up the sign. The sign was manufactured by Sign Crafters of

Evansville, Indiana Evansville is a city in, and the county seat of, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 118,414 at the 2020 census, making it the state's third-most populous city after Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, the largest city in ...

and the plastic sheeting was made by Rohm & Haas Company of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

.McDonald's Store #433 Sign
," Property History & Architecture, ''Arkansas Historic Preservation Program'', accessed January 1, 2013. Ray Kroc designed the sign after seeing an image of the

McDonald family The McDonalds were a wealthy family of California during the 19th and 20th centuries. Descended from Mark Lindsay McDonald (1833-1917), they built and owned the historic residence "Mableton", also known as the "McDonald Mansion", in Santa Rosa. Col ...

crest. The arch itself evokes

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

. In ''Orange Roofs, Golden Arches: The Architecture of American Chain Restaurants'' Phillip Langdon stated the arch was symbolic of a "buoyant spirit: a feeling of skyward momentum, symbolic of an aerospace age in which man could hurtle himself into the heavens." Langdon goes on to state that the purpose of the McDonald's arch was to bring a sense of structural modernism in a roadside hamburger stand.

Historic significance

The U.S.

added the Pine Bluff McDonald's sign to its listings on August 21, 2006, as McDonald's Store #433 Sign. McDonald's has used a variety of designs for its signs; consequently, early examples are exceedingly rare. The sign in Pine Bluff, Arkansas' only known surviving example of an early single arch McDonald's sign, is also a good example of a rare early backlit plastic sign. Backlit plastic signs were popularized post-World War II and revolutionized the sign industry through the 1950s and 60s. It remains unclear exactly how many single-arch McDonald's signs remain nationwide. Before

Hurricane Katrina Hurricane Katrina was a destructive Category 5 Atlantic hurricane that caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion in damage in late August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. It was at the time the cost ...

in 2005, one was still in use in Biloxi, Mississippi. The store on MacArthur Boulevard in

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest o ...

, also had a single arch up until 2006. Others exist in Magnolia, New Jersey;

Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The county seat of Brown County, it is at the head of Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan, at the mouth of the Fox River. It is above sea lev ...

; St Clair Shores, Michigan; Warren, Michigan;

Montrose, Colorado Montrose is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Montrose County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 20,291 at the 2020 census, within a total area of 18.5 square miles. The main ...

; Independence, Missouri; Winter Haven, Florida; Belleville, Illinois; and Muncie, Indiana. A sign is also on display in

The Henry Ford The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum ...

museum in

Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States pe ...

. The sign in Pine Bluff is the only such sign that has its own listing on the National Register, though a few others may exist as

contributing properties In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distric ...

within historic districts. It is likely that most single-arch signs were incorporated into private collections.

History

Design

Historic significance

See also

References

Further reading