Category Archives: Town Sign Project

Town Sign Project: Boone County

November 22, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 9 Comments

I should start the day by wishing Suzie a happy birthday. Happy birthday Suzie!

I hope your birthday was as amazing as you wanted it to be!

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I made a recent decision to start breaking down town in the TOWN SIGN PROJECT by county. I’ve used the Wikipedia and a Iowa Gazetteer to start this process. Well, it seemed rather obvious that the first county I should cross off the list is the county is the county I live in.

Here are the town signs from Boone County.

Boone, Iowa – 12,661

Madrid, Iowa – 2,543

Ogden, Iowa – 2,044

Sheldahl, Iowa – 319

Boxholm, Iowa – 195

Pilot Mound, Iowa – 173

Luther, Iowa – 122

Fraser, Iowa – 102

Beaver, Iowa – 48

Berkley, Iowa – 32

Mackey, Iowa – Unincorporated

Moingona, Iowa – Unincorporated

Centerville, Iowa – Unincorporated

Napier, Iowa – Unincorporated

Ridegeport, Iowa – Unincorporated

Boone County has a couple of unincorporated towns that have no sign to mark their existence. These are Jordan and Logansport. Some people claim that Zenorsville is an unincorporated community, but I would consider it a ghost town. Same way I would consider Coal Valley a ghost town. Elk Rapids a ghost town. However, there are still people living in Jordan and Logansport.

The next county I plan on doing is either Story County or Greene County. Cause, proximity.

Art, Birthdays, Drone, History, Railroad, Ruins, Sara, Self-Portrait, Shawn Lockner, Town Sign Project, WPC - Alternate, WPC - Reminder

Maybe I’m a Man and Maybe I’m a Lonely Man

October 9, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

I need to start today by wishing Shawn a happy birthday. Happy birthday Shawn!

I hope your birthday is as wonderful as you want it to be!

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I do love pictures of SIGNS. My sister-in-law Laura once told me that this makes me a hipster. She is wrong about that, but even if it did make me a hipster, I’d still love pictures of signs. Battered. Beat up. Barely hanging on. My kind of SIGNS. With that in mind, here are the alternate pictures for last week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme SIGNS:

I also took a couple pictures of unincorporated towns in Boone County:

Centerville, Iowa
Unincorporated

Ridgeport, Iowa
Unincorporated

Here is an interesting fact about Ridgeport. It was originally called Mineral Ridge. It took that name from the ridge that the town sits on. It was giving that name because the surveyors that were exploring the area, their compass wasn’t working correctly. The figured that this was because the ridge was filled with minerals. Turns out that they just had a broken compass. At least this is what I read in the latest issue of “Trail Tales”.

I wish more of these unincorporated communities had signs like Centerville. I looked for one in Logansport and didn’t find one. Also looked for some kind of marker where Zenorsville was once located, but found nothing. However, of all the unincorporated communities in Boone County, the lack of any kind of marker for Jordan makes me the saddest. Not just because of my family connection (I also have a family connection to Centerville) to Jordan, but because of its historical significance because of the Jordan tornado. C’est la vie!

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This is your reminder that this week’s theme for THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE is SELF-PORTRAIT:

SELF-PORTRAIT

A SELF-PORTRAIT is simply a picture where the photographer and the subject are the same person. Obviously, there are some creative ways to get around that, if you don’t like take pictures of yourself. Even if that doesn’t make sense to anybody else.

Happy photo harvesting!

Road Trip, Town Sign Project

Town Sign Project – Vol. 11

September 23, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 4 Comments

One of my goals for my vacation was to get 20 new town sign pictures for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT. I thought I would hit this easy, because I had two road trips planned to completely opposite sides of the state. However, on my trip to Mines of Spain, I took zero town sign pictures. I cut that trip shorter than originally intended because of Naima’s leg injury. However, I did get one town sign picture on a small trip on the Tuesday of my vacation. 19 town sign pictures on my trip out west. Then one more for good measure on the Friday of my vacation.

I’m going to start this post though with 4 pictures I took on a trip down to the Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge back in early August.

Colfax, Iowa – Jasper County
Population – 2,093

Mingo, Iowa – Jasper County
Population – 302

Prairie City, Iowa – Jasper County
Population – 1,680

Rhodes, Iowa – Marshall County
Population – 305

My takeaway from these town signs is that on Rhodes has an interesting sign. In some ways, a rather disappointing collection. Another thing of note. Rhodes has a tank in their downtown. One thing I’ve noticed in recent years is how many small Iowa towns have retired military equipment just sitting in the middle of their town.

On Tuesday I took a trip down to Jester Park and to Walnut Woods. I captured one town sign on this trip:

Booneville, Iowa – Dallas County
Unincorporated

Booneville is an unincorporated town in Dallas County. It consists of a restaurant, a post office, a Methodist church, and a small RV park.

Then, on my trip to Preparation Canyon State Park, I took 19 town sign pictures. A ton of them in rain, so many of the signs are wet, but not in a flattering way.

Arcadia, Iowa – Carroll County
Population 484

Arion, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 108

Boyer, Iowa – Crawford County
Unincorporated

Carroll, Iowa – Carroll County – County Seat
Population – 10,103

Carrolton, Iowa – Carroll County
Ghost Town

Charter Oak, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 502

Denison, Iowa – Crawford County – County Seat
Population – 8,298

Dow City, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 510

Dunlap, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 1,042

Kiron, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 279

Lidderdale, Iowa – Carroll County
Population – 180

Moorhead, Iowa – Monona County
Population – 226

Mt. Carmel, Iowa – Carroll County
Unincorporated, maybe?

Ricketts, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 145

Schleswig, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 882

Soldier, Iowa – Monona, County
Population – 174

Vail, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 436

Westside, Iowa – Crawford County
Population – 299

Willey, Iowa – Carroll County
Population – 88

This is not a disappointing collection of signs. I’m in particular a big fan of the Ricketts sign. It has many of the elements I love. It exists. It is fun. It has a slogan. It includes advertising for a town event that happened decades ago.

Then finally, one last sign. I stumbled across this on the Friday of my vacation. It is a town I have been to plenty of times as it is only a few miles from Boone. However, they never had a town sign. Until apparently very recently.

Fraser, Iowa – Boone County
Population – 102

All population figures come from the 2010 census.

On this trip, I realized that I need a slightly new strategy for tackling this project. I ordered an Iowa Gazetteer. I’m going to keep in the car and compile lists of towns in counties before I even leave for these trips. I hope to do an entire county on a trip. Without leaving random towns missed here and there. Right now, I don’t have any counties completely knocked off. Not even Boone County. I don’t even have the Boone sign for this trip. Ames, is another one, you would think is a no-brainer. But I don’t have that one either. You can see, I have plenty of sign hunting to do in just my own back yard.

You can check out all the signs that I have captured so far, you can click on the link below:

Town Sign Project

There are 121 pictures so far, but I bet I can get that number close to 200 by the end of the year.

Art, Iowa State, Road Trip, Town Sign Project, WPC - Reminder

Pandemic Birthday

May 22, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett 5 Comments

Let me start by saying thanks to everybody that wished me a happy birthday on Monday via text or phone call or Instagram messenger or card in the mail or via haircut or Teams. I’m sure some people even wished me a happy birthday on Facebook. I guess I’ll find out if I ever go on Facebook again.

Even thanks to the people who wished me Happy birthday on the wrong day.

It was a unique birthday. I know that numerous people have celebrated a pandemic birthday this year and many of you will celebrate one in the future. Mine wasn’t necessarily all that bad.

To start with, I took my birthday off. I know I couldn’t do all that much, but I just didn’t want to sit in my office all day. Staring at the walls. The same 4 walls.

I got lucky that on Sunday the new SSD arrived for my work from home computer. I was able to upgrade my work from home computer with the SSD, plus more RAM, and a better processor. I was able to get that work done on Sunday, so I didn’t even step foot in my office all day on Monday.

I slept all the way until 7:30. I got up and ate a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and watched THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA on Amazon Prime. It wasn’t exactly the movie that I was expecting. It had a weird ending.

Then I took Naima for a car ride. We stopped at the Jay Carlson Wildlife Area and the Harrier Marsh. She got a good run in at both locations.

Then I went home and had a quick lunch. I had decided to go for a short road trip. I knew I couldn’t travel very far, but I wouldn’t to do something I would enjoy. I decided to make a trip to Rolfe, Iowa to see the greatest piece of art ever constructed my the hands of man.

I took several pictures, have a look:

Since I was on kind of a time crunch, I didn’t harvest many signs for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT, but I did get three bagged:

Bradgate

Callender

Gowrie

When I got back home, I loaded Naima up in the car again and we went over to my Mom’s for my birthday dinner. We had homemade pizza made with the “family sauce recipe”. It doesn’t really belong to the family, but came from a family friend.

On the pizza was sausage, mushrooms, onions, green peppers, and sauerkraut. Delicious!

My Mom also made me a birthday cake. My favorite kind of cake, Mayonnaise Cake! Delicious!

After dinner, we watched the remake of OVERBOARD. I’m not really quite sure how that happened, but maybe I was feeling some 80s nostalgia. Actually, I know I’ve been feeling some 80s nostalgia lately. I recently watched the entire series TEEN WOLF. Entirely based on my fondness for the original TEEN WOLF and my fascination with the absurdity of TEEN WOLF TOO.

After the movie I went back home and finished my day off responding to some text messages before calling it a night.

Pandemic birthday could have been worse, and parts of it were pretty great!

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This is your reminder that this week’s THE WEEKLY PHOTO CHALLENGE theme is SELF-PORTRAIT:

SELF-PORTRAIT

A SELF-PORTRAIT image is simply a picture of yourself. Or a picture of somebody taking a picture of themselves.

Don’t forget that Monday is Memorial Day. While the banks take holidays, Photography 139 never takes a day off. The grind is real! Plan on getting your submissions in accordingly.

Happy photo harvesting!

Animals, Boone FUMC, Event, Flowers, Macro, Naima, Town Sign Project

Slapdash

February 11, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

Today’s collection of images are cleaning up a couple of days worth of images from back in July that were taken, but weren’t the main theme of my photo aspirations for that day.

One of the pictures is from when my people took me to Kamrar for a birthday dinner. Some are from the cluster that was our church’s presentation of the scholarships to our 2019 high school graduates. However, that is a topic that I problem won’t discuss on these pages. It is sufficient to say a wrong was created and a wrong was righted. Some of us got to be filled with righteous indignation, which is a powerful drug. Then there are a couple pictures of my gazanias. Finally, some pictures of Naima in the Dickcissel pond.

Kamrar, Iowa

I now have 93 pictures in THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT album. I need to make one of those sign hunting trips again. Maybe next time Iowa State has a road night game, I could dedicate a Saturday to that.

Animals, Flowers, Macro, Road Trip, Teresa, Town Sign Project

Who’s a Big Boy – Addendum

January 15, 2020 Christopher D. Bennett

This is a collection of images that I took on my way home from following the Big Boy. After letting the train roll past us one last time, Teresa and I headed back to Boone after stopping off in Carroll for a delicious meal at Rancho Grande Mexican.

Then in Glidden we stopped at Dairy Mart for ice cream. Then finally made a brief stop at the Harrier Marsh to take a few photos.

Glidden, Iowa

Ralston, Iowa

I just want to say for the record that flavor burst ice cream is straight trash. I understand it is a way to try to serve several types of ice cream on the cheap, but it is garbage. It is just vanilla ice cream with some weak tasting syrup dribbled around the outside.

That isn’t to say that my experience at Dairy Mart was bad. What I got was delicous. A raspberry shake. I stayed away from that flavor burst garbage.

Road Trip, Town Sign Project

Town Sign Project – Vol. 10

July 25, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

After parting ways with the Howards in Van Meter after lunch after Larry’s graveside service, I decided to just kind of meander back to Boone and do a little town sign hunting for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT.

We left Grover Flavors about 4 PM, which was considerably later than I thought, so I didn’t make as large of a loop back to Boone as I had expected. However, I consider any town sign hunting trip to be a success if I harvest 5 signs. On this trip, I harvested 7!

Linden, Iowa – Pride of “Panther” Country

Panora, Iowa – Welcome to Panora and Lake Panorama

Scranton, Iowa – Scranton Welcomes You!

Redfield, Iowa

Yale, Iowa – Not the Biggest, But the Best

Bagley, Iowa – Welcome to Bagley

Bayard, Iowa – Welcome to Bayard

That is all the town sign hunting I have done lately. However, I’m considering taking August 2 off from work to do some train chasing. If that goes down, I’ll probably do some sign hunting as well. I got to see where I stand with my PTO situation.

Jesse, Road Trip, Town Sign Project

Town Sign Project Vol. 9

July 18, 2019 Christopher D. Bennett

When I went on my birthday road trip with Jesse back in May, I used the trip to Decorah as a chance to do some sign hunting for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT. This was the first time that I had hunted for signs this year. I thought I would have made more progress than that by now, but I have hunted in most of the areas immediately surrounding Boone, so now I have to expand my hunting grounds.

Here are the signs I harvested on that day:

Dumont, Iowa – Small Town Big Heart

Fort Atkinson, Iowa

Hampton, Iowa – The Heart of Franklin County

Ionia, Iowa – The Little Town with a “Big Welcome”

Rowan, Iowa

Latimer, Iowa – A Progressive Community

St. Lucas, Iowa

Allison, Iowa

Blairsburg, Iowa

Calmar, Iowa

Decorah, Iowa

Coulter, Iowa – A Nice Place to Call Home – Population 282

I have actually went sign hunting since then. I’ll publish that harvest soon.

Art, Black & White, Road Trip, Ruins, Town Sign Project

The Town Sign Project Vol. 8 Auxiliary

November 7, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

This is a collection of pictures I took when I was tooling around Highway 169 taking pictures for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT.

If you recall, some of the towns I went through were Lamoni, Ellston, Tingley, Shannon City, Arispe, Afton, Lorimor, and Winterset.

I also went through a town called Kellerton, but I couldn’t find a sign that said, “Welcome to Kellerton!” So it wasn’t included in THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT.

I have an attraction to the decrepit, the dillapidated, the abandoned. This collection might make some of these towns look worse than they are. Except Shannon City. I couldn’t make that town look worse than it is.

I mostly present this picture because next Monday, this car will be paid off. It is thanking me by needing new rear brakes.

Kellerton, Iowa

Kellerton has a bunch of these flower pots in its business district.

There is a town sign for Beaconsfield in Kellerton, but not for Kellerton.

I didn’t actually make it to Beaconsfield, but this isn’t the first town to try to claim ownership of Peggy Whitson.

Ellston, Iowa

#OuthousesOfInstagram

Ellston, Iowa Museum

Ellston, Iowa

Shannon City, Iowa

If Shannon City has 1 thing over Beaver, it is that it does have a church.

Shannon City, Iowa

Big if true!

I actually thought I was going to get stuck on a road in Shannon City, no way I was tempting this road.

I don’t have any more THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT photos in the hopper. I probably will need to get some of those done when I get my brakes done. I will get my brakes done before driving down to Dallas to watch Iowa State play in the Big 12 Championship Game. Hopefully.

Road Trip, Town Sign Project

The Town Sign Project Vol. 8

October 31, 2018 Christopher D. Bennett 2 Comments

A couple weeks back I went to Kansas City to see the Foo Fighters with Nate.

On the way back to Iowa I meandered up 169 mostly and took a few more pictures for THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT.

Here are some photos:

Lamoni, Iowa

Ellston, Iowa

Tingley, Iowa

Shannon City, Iowa

Arispe, Iowa

Afton, Iowa

Lorimor, Iowa

Winterset, Iowa

Shannon City, Iowa didn’t have a town sign. Shannon City, Iowa is one of the scariest towns I’ve ever visited. It gives Beaver a run for its money for being scary.

I was a little disappointed in Tingley, Iowa’s sign. I thought with an awesome town name like Tingley, they would come out with something better than they did.

I already have a Winterset sign, but I like this one much better than the one from a previous collection.

The Lorimor sign is my favorite from this collection.

I’ll get out and take some pictures for this project again in the near future!