DOOR COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Workers installed the refurbished “Welcome to Door County Sign” Wednesday morning.
The move comes just in time for the long Memorial Day Weekend.
For the past 13 years, the sign on this small hill just off Highway 57, has greeted travelers heading north across the Door County line. But about five weeks ago, the sign was gone.
“On Mondays, we’d come in, and there would always be voicemails, from individuals who wandered up from southern Wisconsin, or out of state, asking where the sign was,” said Burke Pinney, Door County Parks Manager.
Pinney tells FOX 11 after more than a decade of door County weather, the sign needed an upgrade. On Wednesday morning a special delivery arrived.
“The company that originally built the sign was bought by Elevate97, which is the current sign company that rehabbed it for us, and thus they had the original blueprints, and specs, and knew exactly what was in there, what needed to be updated internally, as well as externally.”
With the help of a small crane, crews first installed two 9 and-a-half-foot-tall pillars to serve as the vertical boundaries. Then the 19-foot-long, 7-foot-high sign was guided into place. Elevate97 commercial installer Roy Jones says being close to the ground, helped.
“Every sign has its challenges, but today was pretty much just battling the wind, and just getting everything line up nice on the bad grade. How did it turn out? So far, so good.”
Pinney says the improved “Welcome to Door County Sign” should last at least another 13 years.
“You drive past it as a local all the time, and you don’t thing two things of it. But individuals who come up here, and this is their year vacation, their big vacation, it means quite a bit to them to see that sign as they cross over to Door County.”
The sign cost about $23,000 to refurbish.
Park officials say the maintenance project was part of Door County’s 2021 annual budget.
Comments