Fresh paint for iconic sign
Sign that put Penticton on the map getting new paint job
Eighty years ago, people travelling south on the Kettle Valley Railway knew when they’d reached Penticton. That feeling of seeing the big white letters across the lake on Munson Mountain is one Pentictonites have appreciated since 1937.
“I look at it and think, I’m home,” said Brooks Lancaster, a sales associate with Coldwell Banker Okanagan Realty in Penticton.
Coldwell Banker and the South Okanagan Trail Alliance (SOTA) have received permission from the City of Penticton to repaint the iconic sign, all 94 metres of it.
“It’s just something that we have to do,” said Lancaster. “To take a bit of time away from the work schedule and remind ourselves why we actually live here.”
A crew of about a dozen people that includes Lancaster, Blake Apolzer, another associate with Coldwell Banker, and Andrew Droiun of SOTA will be painting the sign on Wednesday, in celebration of its 80 years and Canada’s 150th birthday.
Sherwin Williams in Penticton will be donating the paint. Dan Cumberland, store manager, said he has fond memories of driving into town in his youth.
“It’s iconic. I came here from Fort St. James for hockey school, my aunt and uncle lived here,” he said. “I remember first seeing it on the drive in and going, ‘OK, wow. We’re here.’”
Coldwell contacted Cumberland about providing the paint and he was happy to oblige. “National painting week is in May (when the sign was originally set to be painted), and every year Sherwin Williams goes out and does community service to celebrate,” he said. “So it just made sense.”
The sign was recognized as a B.C. heritage site in 2006. Volunteers have been maintaining it since its construction.
“Being there and maintaining that sign represents who we are as a community,” said Lancaster.
According to a 2009 Penticton Heritage Registry report it was constructed to “literally put Penticton on the map” by members of the Board of Trade. In 1941, it was improved by Jaycees, Board of Trade members, and boy scouts. Volunteers hauled 44,000 pounds of silica rock to the site between 1972 and 1983 and in 1998, concrete was laid down and the silica imbedded in it.
Coldwell Banker previously painted the sign in 2013.