Unless you’re the most unobservant American on the planet, chances are you’ve seen at least one of these historical markers in your lifetime. They’ll usually sneak up on you while you’re playing tourist. Often they’ll be on a street corner or in front of a house in some historic neighborhood, telling you that someone famous did something or other that was special, right here on this very spot, or that some battle was fought or some disaster occurred. Sometimes they’re quite interesting. Just as often they’re deadly dull. I’ve noticed that for some reason the interest factor seems to be in inverse proportion to the length of the text.
It’s fun to spot the spelling or grammatical errors in these signs. There almost always is at least one. I suppose that if a government has gone to the expense of creating and erecting one of these markers, they’re hesitant to start over. But it always makes me wonder if some fact is incorrect as well. Was it really 1863, or was it, perhaps, 1868? I’d never take one of these markers as a source of fact without a second opinion.
But markers that fascinate me the most are the poorly placed ones. Some are on lonely stretches of highway, often half covered by vines, in a location where it’s impossible to park your car. The text is so small you can’t read it from a moving vehicle, and if you come to a stop you’re likely to be rear ended by a semi truck. I once saw one in the median of a particularly busy stretch of a state highway. Seriously? How many people are willing to die for historical knowledge?
These badly positioned markers are historical teases. Driving past them on a daily basis and never knowing what they say is an odd form of torture. I mean, for all I know, I’m driving over the spot where the Ark of the Covenant was last seen, and I’m being deprived of this insight! Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad people are taking the time to preserve history. But for the love of Mike, can’t you put some thought into our ability to bear witness without causing a 10 car pileup?
I want to see the historical marker that says, “On this spot, the very first historical marker was made” because without a doubt, they have been the source of many an unexpected travel detour since their inception, and that, after all, is what makes the acquisition of knowledge the adventure that it is.
The View from a Drawbridge 