Seattle to Portland: The "Uncle Sam" Billboard
This is the sixth part of a series that follows the Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic along its route, and explores the history and transformation of the Pacific Northwest through the communities and stops along the way. See here for part 5.
After sitting around Centralia College as the heat soared towards ninety while David re-hydrated, we headed back to the car and hit I-5 for one of our last stops along the way to Portland. But just south of Centralia, we decided to make a quick stop to check out one of the sites that's always fascinated us—and nearly everyone else who takes I-5: the infamous "Uncle Sam" billboard.
Nothing teaches you the limits of the Internet like trying to research something more than ten years old. The New York Times (where, ironically, we found one of the more informative articles for this story) has all its articles up going back to the 1850s, but small town newspapers in Centralia or Chehalis? Not so much. And without time to spend rooting through bins of old newspapers in the local library or—God forbid—trying to remember how to use microfiche, we've had to settle for a slightly less illuminating story on the origins of I-5's offensive billboard than we would have liked.
The billboard was put up by a man named Alfred Hamilton, on his property, Hamilton Farms. Born in 1920, Hamilton is as good a demonstration of the right-wing mindset that came to prominence after the brief radicalization of working class Washington as anyone. Raised in Chehalis, Hamilton married his wife, Ruth, in 1942, and attended the future Washington State University, but left without graduating during the Second World War.
As his daughter Sherryl Zurek told the AP following his death in 2004, "If he graduated, he would have been drafted. He quit early so he could get a deferment, and he farmed instead of going into the service." Like many of his politically like-minded brethren, Hamilton couldn't be troubled to bother actually going to war, despite the fact that later in life he had plenty to say about those who didn't "support" the troops. By not graduating, he apparently continued to seek academic deferments, a favorite of the next generation of conservatives to dodge the draft during Vietnam (Vice President Dick Cheney receivied five).
But from humble and honorable beginnings come great things. At first a sheep farmer, Hamilton then turned to raising turkeys, developing a breed with a veterinarian that was a local hit. And it's here that the story of the I-5 billboard starts.
When that stretch of I-5 was first plotted in the 1950s it was designed to run straight through the middle of Hamilton Farms. We were unable to ferret out all the details, but it appears Hamilton's first sign was an act of protest against the highway being there at all. But by the 1960s, when the highway was finally built, the cash-strapped Hamilton had come up with an alternative revenue stream by renting advertising space on billboards on his property. The along came First Lady Ladybird Johnson, who was instrumental in getting the 1965 Highway Beautification Act passed.
Designed to regulate the proliferation of commercial billboards along interstate highways (at which it largely failed), the act allowed existing non-conforming billboards to remain in place for several years. It wasn't until 1971 that the Attorney General came demanding Hamilton remove his signs, and it was right around then that his wife read that, for the first time, the state was spending more on welfare than on education. And so Uncle Sam was born.
Over the years, Hamilton has shared his opinions on a wide variety of topics, but his most hateful have tended to be the most notorious, particularly on the subject of gays: "AIDS turns fruits into vegetables" and "Evergreen State College - Home of Environmental Terrorists and Homos?" stand out. An interesting tidbit we discovered (courtesy of the Meet the Stress blog) was a court document from 1980, rejecting the State's appeal of a lower court's ruling in Hamilton's favor over the sign. It amusingly lists out a number of other billboard slogans, including "Gun Control is a step toward 'people control,'" "Sign Initiative 309. Repeal Shorelines Management Act," "There are no billboards in Russia or Red China," "Don't give canal to Panama. Give them Kissinger," "What price environmentalism?" and "Women are meant to be cherished not liberated." It also reveals how Hamilton used to conflate his political sloganeering with his more practical, commercial side, recording signs like "Non-communist straw for sale" and "Non-red or pink springer for sale."
Old Man Hamilton eventually sold his land, but he made sure he was able to keep his sign up, and kept putting new slogans up until his death in 2004. The tradition has continued today, apparently carried on by his son, who made national headlines in 2007 with the infamous "No Mexican Olympic teams? All the runners and swimmers are here!" Shortly thereafter, as if in holy vengeance, the segment of I-5 near the billboard flooded.
Next: Vader
2007 photo of the "Mexican Olympic team" sign courtesy of Seattlest Flickr group wrangler scarequotes; 2008 photo by K. Patora.
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