Some western communities have the initial of a town or a school on a nearby hillside. Among the illustrations of this is the large "V" for Virginia City (they weren't ambitious enough to do a "V.C." or they were too busy hanging outlaws) and the large concrete "M" representing Missoula, which can be easily seen on Mt. Sentinel (see below). While these were originally made as reflections of community pride, in recent times some environmentalists have complained that they mar the landscape. Because of this, a waning of community pride or boosterism, these hillside letters in many locations have fallen into states of disrepair.
There's also a legend about one: It seems that one of the Schools of Mines has a rivalry with another institution. On one occasion they used dynamite to blow up the opposition's hillside letter!
Wikipedia gives us a list of these hillside letters. Enjoy!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hillside_letters
Here's also a link to a parody site. See the Jan. 6 entry: Tennessee resolves not to make ridiculous headlines in 2012.
http://www.notsville.com/
Many years ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I attended North Allegheny (or "NA") high school. At homecoming one year, our pep club went up on the broad hill overlooking the football field and used lime spreaders to spell out "GO NA!" in huge letters. You can guess the rest ... the night before the homecoming game, someone had gone out in the night and edited the hillside to read "GO NA DS!" We were an odd group, we were...
ReplyDeleteThese letters are cool. I'd like to see some in situ.
ReplyDeleteGreat story, Bilbo, about North Allegeny High School.