SIGN POSTS NEAR CHICAGO.

The New York Times
December 19, 1909

Three of the Four Prominent Routes Now Completed.

Special to The New York Times.

CHICAGO, Dec. 18.—Few local motorists realize it, yet since the advent of cold weather the Chicago Motor Club has succeeded in signboarding the country hereabout until now three of the four routes selected for tagging have been completed, and the other one will be finished as soon as there comes a break in the weather so the men can go out on the roads again.

Two hundred and ninety posts in all will have been planted before the first of the year, and there will be just that many guides for motorists, informing them where they are going and how far it is to that point.  On those 290 posts will be 787 cast iron signs, and when the last one is in place Joseph V. Lawrence, in charge of the Chicago Motor Club, will have finished a task upon which he has been working for the last two years, and which will represent an expenditure of $2,000—all voluntary subscriptions from motorists and motoring interests.

This little surprise was sprung by Chairman Lawrence at the annual meeting of the Chicago Motor Club, for not many knew that for the last two months the work of actually placing the signs has been going on quietly.  At the present time Chairman Lawrence has placed his signs on the Chicago-Beloit route from the city limits to Beloit via Elgin, Algonquin, and Lake Delevan.  This was the first job tackled, and upon its completion the gang went out on the Chicago-Lake Geneva Route via Rogers Park, Niles Centre, Wheeling, Wauconda, and Genoa Junction.