Red Star Produce Co. -- Fort Smith AR
N 35° 23.112 W 094° 25.719
15S E 370242 N 3916698
Ghost signs for a former grocery business decorate a piano warehouse near the Fort Smith Trolley Museum.
Waymark Code: WMN8GT
Location: Arkansas, United States
Date Posted: 01/19/2015
Views: 3
Ghost signs on this humble building in an awkward triangle between the main and the spur of the old Frisco railroad lines through downtown Fort Smith attest to its former use as the Red Star Produce Company. Today it serves as the Plunkett Music Company Piano Warehouse.
Blasterz are no experts in sign-dating, but it looks to us like the Red Star Produce Co. sign was the first use on this 1910s-era commercial building. From the colors of the paint and the style of writing, it looks like the piano company took the space over in the 1950s-1960s-1970s.
The signs read as follows:
[north side, a banner sign]
"Red Star Produce Co."
[west side, banner sign]]
"Red Star Produce Company."
[west side, wall sign]
"Warehouse
Plunkett (logo)
Music and Furniture Co.
PIANOS * ORGANS
175 mile FREE delivery
Visit Rooms and Sales Dept. at 2411 Dodson ph. 782-4075"
[South side, banner sign]
"(painted over: Groc) ery Co."
"WAREHOUSE Plunkett Music & Furniture"
By looking at the Fort Smith City Directory for 1938, we see that the Red Star Grocery Co. was already out of business, replaced by the Fort Smith Grocery Co. at that location. Source: 1938 Fort Smith AR City Directory, from Ancestry.com