Coke sign in my town.

[tamrock]

Yesterday I drove by the fire station and what I saw inside reminded me of a treasure found in my hometown town of Lafayette Colo this last year. The main highway that runs through Lafayette is Hwy 287 and was the route going north and south along the entire Colorado front range from the 1920's I think?. When I moved here it was the only route going north and south in town and was mess until they built a bypass. Some of the old building along the route go back to the early 20th century and as long as I lived here this old building was this Mexican restaurant called La Familia covered in stucco. The restaurant closed it seems a couple years back and it was decided to tear the old building down. When they removed the stucco they found behind it this very large hand painted Coca Cola sign and It was decided that it should be saved. I'm not sure what the town will do with it, but I do like the fact it was saved.


Lafayette to preserve newly uncovered Coca-Cola mural on La Familia building - Colorado Hometown Weekly

Restoration of vintage Coca-Cola mural underway in Lafayette - Colorado Hometown Weekly

 

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[RustyGold]

That's an awesome find! Interesting story, thanks.

 

[jeff of pa]

Cool ! Personally if I owned the Building. I'd ask for it Back

I guess there was nothing under the Other Wall ?



Before they removed the Siding & found it it looked like this.

 

[tamrock]

Ya know maybe it wasn't stucco ? Or the front of it was? I'd never ate at the restaurant when it was there. I just drove by the new building going up in its place and it's designed like the old original building that was built I'm guessing in the early 20th century. They're redoing a few building's up town now. When I moved here there was an old 1920s gas station across the street from this old restaurant that was demolished maybe 20 years ago now. That kind of made me sad.

 

[CaptEsteban]

I used to do a little sign painting & have repainted some of those. KOOL.

 

[diggingthe1]

I love the old advertisments. I wish I could uncover what is behind my stucco, too tedious of work for me. It was painted around 1900-1910. Wish I could get a grant to uncover it. I checked into it a little. A few buildings around Victor, CO have had their secrets uncovered recently. Lots of glorious brickwork was covered up in this town by stucco. I'm glad they saved the painting! you don't get those back

 

[tamrock]

In the 90s I had a customer who moved into an old building in St Louis. The city was doing a lot of renovation on this old 19th century district of the city and were offering some kind of incentive for businesses to move in the area. I remember it was close to the Mississippi River and down by the old Budweiser brewery, which was pretty old itself. He was completely gutting the place and behind one wall was this large hand painted mural with a street scene of the 1890s. I remember the mural had men and women dressed in the style of the time and a dude on a high wheeler bicycle riding in the street. He told me the old building was a tavern at one time and they felt that's when the mural was painted. I'd a took a picture of it if my old Nokia cell phone had a camera in it back then.

 

[tamrock]

I took this picture yesterday of the brand new construction of where the old bar was torn down. You can see that they preserved the period architecture in the new building from the old building the coke sign was saved from. They're doing all kinds of renovation in the old part of town lately and having events in the summer every 3rd Friday to bring out street vendors and draw folks uptown to the shops and restaurants. The street this is all on is close to the old overland trail called the Laramie Trail that was used during the fur trade days and California gold rush for those who entered Colorado from central Kansas and pretty much followed the present path of highway 287 that heads north to Laramie Wyoming and from there travelers would head west to gold fields or split off to the Oregon trail in western Wyoming.