Harpers Ferry selected for nostalgic Burma-Shave signs through Our Iowa promotion

Hardly a driver... is now alive... who passed... on hills... at 75.
That roadside Burma-Shave jingle is vividly remembered by one of the editors of Our Iowa magazine. “It added a bit of fun to each drive as everyone in the car read the sequence of signs aloud,” he says. “I always wished someone would bring those signs back.”
After some thought, the staff of the magazine decided, “Who better to do that than us?”
With that, they announced the program to its 75,000 subscribers, offering to post a single set of the humorous signs in each of Iowa’s 99 counties. Readers were urged to nominate their town and provide reasons why it would be the best site.
Representatives of Harpers Ferry moved quickly to put together an application, recognizing that having the county’s only set of the signs could become a tourist attraction and bring more customer traffic for dining and shopping. After some consideration by the Our Iowa staff, Harpers Ferry was selected as the winner for Allamakee County.
"I am one of several subscribers to Our Iowa in Harpers Ferry, and I kept seeing in each issue that the signs hadn't been given to anyone in Allamakee County, so we took the idea and ran with it," said Kathy Whalen, chairperson of the Harpers Ferry Booster Club Burma-Shave Sign Committee. "I brought it up at our January (Booster Club) meeting, and we followed everything we needed to do, and the signs are now in place as of last Thursday (March 29)."
The set of signs was erected along Allamakee County Road X52 (Great River Road) just north of town. The committee is thankful to Ron and Brigid Cota for allowing the signs to be placed within the right of way of their property, and also thankful to Allamakee County Zoning Administrator Tom Blake and the County Planning and Zoning Commission for working with the committee to meet requirements for placement, including the granting of a variance.
In addition to the above assistance, the Booster Club also had the posts and concrete donated to the project by Dave Stilwell, who is also a Harpers Ferry Booster Club member. So, with the signs being supplied at no charge by Our Iowa magazine, the project basically ended up costing the Booster Club little more than the time to bring it to reality and completion.
Whalen said the committee first looked at having the signs placed south of town on Great River Road because of a noted higher traffic count, but found that the steeper ditches and the railroad tracks along that portion of the highway proved detrimental to the feasibility.
Whalen also said that promotion organizers at Our Iowa magazine said they were contacted by people from Lansing, Waukon and Postville. One of the requirements of the promotion, however, was that the signs not be placed along a state or federal highway, which limited possibilities in those communities that have Iowa Highways 9, 76, 26 and 51, as well as U.S. Highways 18 and 52 running to them and in some cases through them.
Members of the Harpers Ferry Booster Club had the opportunity to choose the jingle that appeared on the signs from a long list of original Burma-Shave rhymes that were supplied, and they chose this one:
Many a forest... used to stand... where a lighted match... got out of hand.
The last sign following the slogan carries the Our Iowa logo as the sponsor of the program.
Whalen said the slogan selection process was "very democratic" in that the three-page list supplied by Our Iowa magazine was passed around at one of the Booster Club meetings and members prioritized their top three choices. The chosen slogan was the most popular choice of club members voting, but in hindsight turned out to hold a more local meaning.
"We wanted to get the signs in place before the (Harpers Ferry) fire department's wild game feed (scheduled for this Saturday, April 14), and Ron Cota - who's one of the firemen down here - pointed out the fire theme in the signs," Whalen explained.
As the singular sets of signs begin appearing in other counties across the state (the jingle for each county will be different, making the rhyme in each of Iowa’s 99 counties “exclusive”), their exact location will be noted in future issues of Our Iowa magazine, which should add a little fun to drives across Iowa.
The background of the Burma-Shave signs is almost as interesting as their teasing jingles. The roadside rhymes were started by Allan Odell in 1925, with $200 he borrowed from his father, who owned the Burma-Vita Company.
The young Odell came up with the idea - a unique way to promote the family’s brushless shaving cream. At first, his father was hesitant about this “new fangled advertising idea”. But, reluctant to discourage an ambitious son, he went along with it. And the rest is history.
Odell wrote the original jingles himself, and personally erected the first set of signs in southern Minnesota along U.S. 65 near Albert Lea. The signs quickly caught the attention of drivers - and buyers. The idea not only worked, it became an American institution.
Each set of rhyming lines was broken into short snippets and placed on sequential signs that could be read up to 50 mph. The last line always said, “Burma-Shave”, in its flourished logo. Odell kept a flashlight, pencil and pad next to his bed to write down ideas for jingles, many of which came to him in the middle of the night.
For almost four decades, the signs dotted the American countryside. At one time there were 7,000 sets of Burma-Shave signs in 45 states. Many regarded them as “a slice of Americana”. Many promoted safe driving: A guy who drives... his car wide open... is not thinkin'... he's just hopin’.
Everyone in the car read them aloud-so often that many people can still recite their favorite jingle today. But as highways improved and interstates crisscrossed the country, the signs unfortunately become more of a blur than a buzz. Beyond 60 mph they proved hard to read, which eventually led to the demise of both the signs and the company.
But it didn’t dim the memory of either in the minds of Our Iowa subscribers. When the restoration of the historic signs was announced, many not only sent in their favorite rhyme, but even pleaded, “Please put that single set of signs for our county near our town!”
The eventual selection was based on a number of things. First and key was the proposed location of the signs-preferably along a route where there is a lot of traffic, but near a town where the traffic would be slower. Also judged was the community’s commitment to maintaining the site - trimming grass and weeds regularly, keeping the signs standing straight, etc.
To assure the latter, the Our Iowa staff is selecting a “secret subscriber” in each county to regularly check on that community’s set of signs and report on how they’re being maintained.
Now that the magazine’s “Bring Back Burma-Shave” program is well underway, travelers can look forward to spotting a chuckle along the roadside all across Iowa in the near future. Such as: Ben met Anna... made a hit.. neglected beard... Ben-Anna split.