Walk the alleys behind downtown Bozeman’s storefronts, and the brick walls start talking. Painted advertisements from another era still cling to masonry, even after the businesses, products, and trends they promoted disappeared. Historians call them ghost signs, and in their own time they were simply “brick ads.”
NBC Montana followed Gallatin History Museum research director Rachel Phillips and Extreme History program assistant Julia Strehlau Jacobs through Bozeman’s historic business district to study the surviving lettering. Phillips described the signs as art that preserves remnants of the past. Jacobs called them a witness to their time, even though they began as straightforward advertising.
In the alley near the Story Block, Jacobs said the building was built in 1901 by Nelson Story, Montana’s famed first millionaire, and later leased to businesses. On one edge of the building, a ghost sign still advertises the Gallatin Drug Company, a corner store that operated there from 1905 to 1954. Nearby, another sign points to Hub Howards, a prominent men’s store that even played a role in a national theft ring in the 1940s, according to Phillips and Jacobs.
A few blocks away, the walls show even more layers, including signs for Bozeman Pharmacy, a Rexall Store, and the SRE Store, short for Sullivan Radio Electric. Phillips said the name traced back to William J. Sullivan, known as Sully, who built a business repairing radios before later operating the AMC Sullivan Photo Shop on Main Street.
For mason contractors and restoration crews, ghost signs are also a field reminder that old coatings deserve respect. Jacobs noted some paints used lead in their color, and she said old lettering sometimes returns through new paint. Before washing, grinding, repointing, or repainting an exterior brick wall with a painted sign, owners and contractors benefit from a clear plan that treats the artwork, and the coating, as part of the historic fabric.
Read the full, original article from NBC Montana here.