Highway Sign: Check out this pic I found!

RLAiello · Post by **RLAiello** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:21 pm

Today I was at my mom's house helping her start cleaning out her basement in an effort to sell the house my sister and I grew up in. They lived there for 40 years, so the accumulation of junk is mind-boggling.

Anyway, we were going through a bunch of stuff and I discovered a Polariod picture that I absolutely had to share with all of you. I had no idea it even existed... but apparently I, or my sister, took it while driving on Interstate 94 past Six Flags Great America:

That's the Gurnee highway sign being changed over from the old "Great America" logo to the new "Six Flags" logo... midway through the change!

(Note the seasonal parking sticker in the lower left hand corner of the windshield. I can't tell whose car this is... but if I had to wager a guess, my sister was driving her car and I snapped the picture. We were such geeks back then.

)

Pretty nifty find eh? And I wasn't even looking for it!

WhizzerSFGAm · Post by **WhizzerSFGAm** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 5:21 pm

I'm suprised it took them until 1992 or later to get Six Flags on the highway sign

Must be though, because I see Batman.

SFGAmfreak4life · Post by **SFGAmfreak4life** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:10 pm

Nice picture!

RLAiello · Post by **RLAiello** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 12:40 am

WhizzerSFGAm wrote:I'm suprised it took them until 1992 or later to get Six Flags on the highway sign Must be though, because I see Batman.

It did say Six Flags... they had replaced "Marriott's with "Six Flags" when the changeover happened. This was when they changed the logo completely, so it was probably 92 or 93.

redfishpaw · Post by **redfishpaw** » Tue Aug 01, 2006 10:09 am

Was that the window sticker for a season pass holder or an employees parking sticker?
During the 80's the employee parking sticker was round with a carousel horse in the middle, there was a colored ring on the perimeter which indicated which lot you could park in. Red was for the regular seasonal employee lot. Gold; which I had, was for the full time employee lot, (the smaller lot by the personal building), Grey was for management lot, inside by admin building. (grey could also drive into the park service corridor).
As far as the highway sign goes, I previously always thought that the original Marriotts sign was still there and just covered over with the newer Six Flags one, which also seems to be the case as shown in Ricks photo. (this is just my theory). Also, hasen't the sign been changed more than once?. It was already changed over to Six Flags in 1985 when I started in the park, later SF wanted the ''Six Flags'' name to dominate over the ''Great America'' name, so the name ''Six Flags'' would have been made larger (not just the sign but on literally everything in and related to the park). Going back to the sign thread (see brian's 2005 pic)

http://www.greatamericaparks.com/forums ... light=#155 . I dont beleive the sign looked like this in the late 80's.

twixmix0303 · Post by **twixmix0303** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:11 pm

Gurnee park to get new highway sign

Daily Herald: http://www.dailyherald.com/news/lakesto ... c=l&tc=&t=

The print edition had a rendering of what the new sign will look like. The white base will be the same, just the top will be different. It will be squared on the bottom and curved on top, with the Bugs Bunny logo (it will not include the 45th ribbon like some newspapers reported) and the words "& Hurricane Harbor Waterpark" printed underneath "Six Flags Great America." That portion of the sign will be backlit. Underneath will be an LCD and underneath that will be two backlit signs for advertisers. In the newspaper, it had the American Airlines logo with the words "Official Airline of Six Flags" and the Starbucks logo. Hmm...I wonder if that means anything? The sign will be up before year's end as it is in this year's budget.

Papas · Post by **Papas** » Thu Sep 14, 2006 2:54 pm

RLAiello · Post by **RLAiello** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 8:23 am

I went on the Daily Herald website for the whole story... here it is:

Six Flags to get new sign after 30 years
Moratorium lifted for bright, video display

By Bob Susnjara
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Thursday, September 14, 2006

Six Flags Great America is ready to retire an original part of its operation that’s been in place since 1976.

Going out to pasture will be the Gurnee theme park’s 30-year-old sign off the Tri-State Tollway, just before the Grand Avenue ramps. A new high-tech sign should be ready before year’s end.

Hank Salemi, vice president and general manager at Great America, said having a modern sign is a big deal to the park.

Salemi said the sign’s electronic message board has stopped working, which can give the impression to tollway drivers that the park isn’t open. The sign was installed when the facility was named Marriott’s Great America.

“It would be difficult or impossible to repair the sign due to its age,” Salemi told the Gurnee village board this week.

Gurnee trustees agreed to assist Great America by allowing it to skirt a moratorium on construction of new pole signs taller than 15 feet in commercial and industrial districts. The moratorium lasts until mid-January, but Salemi said Great America must build its new sign this year for budget purposes.

Plans call for the sign to be placed atop the current base, touting Great America and the accompanying Hurricane Harbor water park in bolder colors. A high-tech video screen will go in the middle and advertising on the bottom.

Some questions about the new sign arose from the Gurnee village board during a meeting this week.

“Has anyone looked at the driving distraction with the video?” Trustee Greg Garner asked Salemi.

Salemi replied that research shows video screens flashing images off roads don’t lead to more traffic collisions. He cited a University of Virginia study as the source of his information.

Video will flash with park-related messages and various images every three or five seconds, Salemi said. The video will run 24 hours a day.

When queried by Mayor Kristina Kovarik about the need for advertising on the sign, Salemi said the park doesn’t have a choice. He said the ads will help pay for the sign.

Separately, Kovarik congratulated Salemi for working with village police to solve Great America-related traffic problems in 2005. The fixes included an earlier parking lot opening and resuming use of a back entrance on Washington Street just west of Milwaukee Avenue.

Kovarik said this was the first summer she didn’t encounter complaints about Great America traffic.

phonebone · Post by **phonebone** » Wed Oct 11, 2006 4:50 pm

Good grief!! There's even a Starbucks sign on it..

redfishpaw · Post by **redfishpaw** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 4:22 pm

Double Good Grief!! SF should stick with the old sign, video or no video.

WhizzerSFGAm · Post by **WhizzerSFGAm** » Mon Dec 11, 2006 4:39 pm

The old sign came down today. Work on the new sign should start very soon.

SFGAmfreak4life · Post by **SFGAmfreak4life** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 10:50 am

I love the current sign and I dont think it needs to be updated. When this new sign starts to cause accidents GAm is going to want to put the old sign up.

Glorfindel7 · Post by **Glorfindel7** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 5:08 pm

SFGAmfreak4life wrote:I love the current sign and I dont think it needs to be updated. When this new sign starts to cause accidents GAm is going to want to put the old sign up.

I'm sorry, but how many more accidents will gaping at this sign cause compared with the "wait until the roller coaster goes down the hill" variety?

SFGAmfreak4life · Post by **SFGAmfreak4life** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 2:48 pm

People are easily distracted when they drive. When the clips play on the sign people are going to watch them. You only have to be distracted for one second to get into an accident. Im not saying there are going to be a ton of accidents but there will be a good amount.

Glorfindel7 · Post by **Glorfindel7** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:25 pm

I guess it really depends on what's on the video... The vast majority of people on I294 will probably drive down the road enough so that they won't be distracted.

However someone on a cell phone who is also looking at the sign might be a problem