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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 17, 1911)
TEE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE? bT.PTEMBER 17. 1311. igns that D! Darkness and ELECTRIC SIGNS ATTRACTIVE Help to Dispel the Darkness of the Gate City. ATTRACT VISITORS' ATTENTION TrTler Comment on th W4t . fnl Display Wb lr u Ma4 O-rrr Ralldln an th L4lac Strt of Omaba. Si .ispel. pm, . mi. i,a. --.gw ' "VStT Wit '"lV -""- ...i...,,. 7 -f' Or jo!3t k,uA jcHol Jc foiprt b o Uo U U loi H PUG raG fel(voR0r t-' . . wrw ws' 1 " I r Jo Jo pi p 0 p Vwp W W .HV-tit St. ,0 !0 i-L 1 i-- ST - - .viC Th Urge electric feign which surmounts the sew building of the Union Outfitting Company, Jaci; son and Sixteenth etreets, is a massive contrivance 1$5 feet above the street, Is seventy feet high and fifty feet wide. The letters making up the sign are made of heavy galvanized Iron and more than 1,100 tungsten lamps are used to Illuminate the whole structure. Four complete bhanges are made by a largo modern flashing machine. Th start begins at the lower part of the arrow and follows the lights around until the arrow is lighted up. The arrows are Illuminated in red. The first word of the sign to be Illuminated Is. "Union," which lights up as soon as the border is blazing. The words "Outfitting" and "Company" are then filled with electricity and the whole sign gives forth a brilliant light. It is one of the largest and most attractive signs in the city. 2&Bam NdtfA T A iH'rn-ifl-rt-ntf -tufci ir-ro-ra-fiwiiwnirtm turn I JTTjzi J,nt (foci , vi tXw.''n.tfr 1 1 II WWyfjswissa''fiwjHWe i'isj nsgii WM jwr-T 1 li This brilliant electric sign blazes forth at the southeast corner Of Twelfth and Farnam streets, where Is located the Fair store. The incandescent bulbs in this display are very powerful and spread out a brilliant light which makes this a very attractive sign. It Is net an animated sign, but It gives a steady stream of light that really beams welcome to all who gaze upon it. "Elctrle tirn arc important feeur of a city." This ttmnt it ercditxl to a mn who has traveled over all the United States. He has been in every larfe city, and he says that every city that is not well lighted with eleetrlc sifns and display window announcements is behind the times non-proyreesive. "slow." But the City that supports many electric signs, the city whose merchants are live enough to tell of their business through the power of the wonderful signs. Is the one that la always a progressive municipality, with a bunch of citizens who are up and doing all the time. , Nothing adds to the appearance of a city so much as well lighted streets. And elec tric signs are the means of getting the best Illuminated streets Take, for in stance, Omaha. Douglaa and Farnam streets shimmer under the rays of hundreds of lights that are held In many electric display signs. That "Dutch Cleanser" sign at the corner of Sixteenth and Farnam streets does mors to give Omaha "city class'' thsn any other feature on the street. It attracts the attention of every visitor, who comments upon It to his friends. Its fame has spread from coast to coast. Now there has been added to the big signs of the ' city, within the last few weeks, a Holeproof Hosiery blaser on top of the store of the Nebraska Clothing company, Fifteenth and Farnam streets. This Is one of the large signs of tne city, and It Is doing much toward malting Farnam street a "great white way." If the progressive merchants of Omaha keep on, there soon will be no western city that can say it is so well lighted as Omaha. C It 1 tens Soon Realise I. The citizen of Omaha who has been away from home who has gone into some other town of the west that la not well lighted at once realizes, when he returns home, how well supplied with signs his elty Is. He knows what It means to have many signs shooting forth their brilliant rays at night and making the streets brilliant. Or this same citizen, If he eould walk down through the business section of the elty during a period of night when all signs were turned off, would again have the value of these displays Impressed forcibly upon his mind. For many years Omaha has waged a war against the powers of darkness. Under the direction of Mr. I. B. Zimman, who la In charge of the. contract department, the Omaha Electric Light and Power company, which furnishes light for all the signs and stores, has been a chief factor in turning night Into day. It has refused to permit night to conquer day. Each year has seen more and better night illumination, until Omaha Is now taking Its place among the best lighted cities of the west. Private Merchants Do It. It would not be ; so remarkable if this Illumination were a clvio undertaking. What makes It entirely noteworthy Is that the private enterprise of progressive mer chants is the reason for the city's pre eminence. Nor is this electrical brilliance (Continued on Page Three.) m l -- . j-j A lign that is famous throughout th. witird trt is th "Old Dutch Cleaiifer," which is mounted on the roof of the building on the southeast cornsr of Sixteenth -and Farnam streets. Without being familiar with th xit measurements of this sign, one would naturally 6ay that it is about 25 feet high and probably SO feet wide. But the huge 6ign is 4SxM feet over all. The matron is SO feet high. The shoes are six feet long. The other measurements are: club, 20 feet long; head, 9 feet wide; forearm. S feet long; skirt, 25 feet wide; top of sign from sidewalk, 54 feet; letters, 5V2 to 6 feet long. The arm club movement la accomplished by what Is known to electrical men as high-speed "flasher." These electrical de vices sre not unlike hundreds of ether contrivances used to throw the electric current on end off to produce the desired effect. The flasher is operated by a small power motor, so arranged that the lights in the upper arm are turned off and the lower flashed on so quickly that It glvea th effect of a movable arm. iiiF 0 1 V &z2$i' jeriV flrrth& ' 'viT'Vt.V' am The Holeproof hosiery electric sign is 55 feet high by 45 feet wide and con tains approximately 1,500 lights. "Holeproof Hosiery, Nebraska Clothing Co." burns steadily. The white columns on each side change color from white to green, giving a torch effect at top of each column. The letter "H" in the word "Hole proof" is 10 feet high and contains 34 lights, which are enough for the average business electric sign.- The arch with ornament at top, is lighted by 150 ruby lights, and different colors will be used as occasion requires. If you have ever walked south on Sixteenth street at night your eye has been caught bv the brilliant electric sign of the Omaha Van and Storage company, which shoots a multitude of rays toward the sky from the top of the fire-proof storage at Sixteenth and Leavenworth streets. It catches the attention of any one who has occasion to look south in the direction of Sixteenth and Leavenworth streets. The "Fire-proof" of the sign 16 lighted by red bulbs, while the word "Storage" blazes forth In white incandescent. t nil M -1f if V V. J l--.V (51 1.' - - . .... Sparkling with more than 1,200 strong incan descents, th Lawrenc Barrett cigar sign makes one of the best electrical advertisements in the city. It is located on the Snukeri buu an ou 0u Sixteenth street, between Farnam and Harney streets It is 44 feet square The cigar is 24 fei long, and the smoke which curls from It is 18 feet high. The lamps in the border burn steadily. On the end of the cigar are a few red lights which are lighted and extinguished so as to give the Impression of some one's puffing on the cigar. When the puffing is completed the smok trails up ward from the cigar. Then the letters on the sign are lighted, reading "Lawrence Barrett Cigar, 10 and ISc Mild Havana." The border of the aign resembles a ribbon, and is knotted in the lower left hand corner. The sign is on of the prettiest In th city, and is daily called to the at tention of strangers.