Throughout Salton City you will occasionally find wooden street signs. Presumably these are the original street signs when the city was built in the late 1950s. Very few survive today, and for some reason many of the remaining signs are in the air park.
The sign at Air Loop and Air Park had been broken since at least 2021 when I found it in the same state in 2023. The previous Street View on Google Maps is 2008 and it was still standing at that time. When I encountered this, The Air Park Drive sign was no where to be found. The part you see on the ground is the Air Loop sign with the 45 degree support still attached with a large carriage bolt.
I do not support vandalizing or the theft of anything from Salton City or anywhere in Imperial County. But as this had been rotting into dust for years by the time I came along, I could not resist but to take it all home with me.
I took it all to the UPS Store and let them carefully package it all in tons of bubble wrap to ship it back to Chicago. It was too large to fit into my suitcase and too fragile anyway. I paid a preimum but I knew it would be worth it.
When I got home and recieved the package from CA, I got to work. The glue up was not easy – the breaks were not clean and were highly splitered. So with a number of weights and clamps, I was able to get it together. But I knew this would still be extremely fragile so additional steps would have to be taken.
Using a salvaged piece of plywood, I attached it using construction adhesive.
It is missing a couple shards from the face but this is the price for nearly 75 years in the desert. It shall be safe forever more in my bedroom!
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