James Baughn was the webmaster of seMissourian.com and its sister newspapers for 20 years. On the side, he maintained even more sites, including Bridgehunter.com, LandmarkHunter.com, TheCapeRock.com, and Humorix. Baughn passed away in 2020 while doing one of the things he loved most: hiking in Southeast Missouri. Here is an archive of his writing about hiking and nature in our area.

Holy cow! Road signs spotted in Pope County, Illinois

Posted Monday, April 6, 2009, at 5:00 PM

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the lack of road signs in Southern Illinois, joking, "I've heard rumors that road signs exist in Pope County, but I've yet to observe any of these creatures in the wild.

I visited Pope County over the weekend and nearly fell out of my truck when I saw this:

That's an honest-to-goodness road sign, not a Photoshopped demo. Amazing! I was trying to find the turnoff for Sand Cave, so this sign was actually helpful.

I discovered that most intersections in Pope County were marked by these shiny new road signs, which must have been installed since I last visited in November.

I did notice some problems -- road signs that didn't match my maps or GPS navigator -- but this is definitely a step in the right direction. It's still way too easy to get lost in Southern Illinois, but with consistent street signs, it's possible to give useful driving directions now.

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It MUST be new. It hasn't been shot up yet.

-- Posted by Ken1 on Tue, Apr 7, 2009, at 9:30 AM

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