Article written by Sarah Blankenship, Project Design Assistant, Texas Main Street Program

Halloween is not too far off, so how about a new take on the ghost tour by highlighting your local ghost murals?  But wait, what is a ghost mural and does your city have any? A ghost mural is a historic sign painted on the side of the building. Typically they advertised the business inside the building or a product sold inside the store. Coca-Cola is one of the most widely known product murals. Over the years, the paint fades off and the letters can become faded, semi-transparent - ghostly looking.

The newest Main Street managers got a firsthand look of a ghost mural in San Marcos during their walking tour. Lettering can be seen along the entire side of a building: C.T Bass Drugs and Medicines is visible but rest of the signage is very difficult to decipher. Investigating the history of the business or product can lead to a whole wealth of entertaining education. Take for example the ghost sign of a Sanitary Bakery in Georgetown. “Sanitary” seems an odd advertising word today for a bakery, but take a trip back in time and picture yourself in the early 1900s when infectious diseases were widely prevalent in the U.S. The 1918 flu pandemic hit an estimated 25 million Americans. Many schools and businesses closed and churches did not meet. Polio was on a rampage in the 1940s and thousands were paralyzed or died. No one really knew what caused it - rumors flew and germs were implicated. Public swimming pools were shut down, movie patrons were urged not to sit too close, many children were bathed nightly in Clorox. In these times, it was important to advertise that customers would not get germs from their business, so touting cleanliness over yumminess was the way to go. 

Ghost murals are an important part of our history and there are different ideas about what should be done about their fading appearance. There are three approaches to ghost murals:

1. Leave them as is. Leaving them exactly the way they are is the authentic history, and they have a beauty of their own in this state. Do ensure that photos are taken or archived to document their history for future generations to learn about even if they can no longer be seen in entirety. 

2. Repaint the mural with 100% coverage. This approach is the least favored since it makes the mural look brand new again rather than a historical element. On the more technical level, many historic murals were painted on brick. The Texas Main Street Program does not recommend painting on brick because it can interfere with how brick absorbs and repels water. Water can get trapped behind the paint and cause deterioration of the brick. 

3. Lightly touch up the design and lettering so it can be seen again. 
This approach uses diluted paint to still allow a faded appearance and convey it is a historic mural. Often times this will require research into historic city directories, yearbooks,
newspapers, Sanborn maps, museum files, and of course local citizens for historical photographs and information. 

Transitioning to new signage, two different approaches were seen in San Marcos.

1. Painting the new business signage in the same appearance as historic signage (or sometimes directly on top of historic signage). Note the “Established 2014” date on Stonewall Warehouse below. 

2. Leaving the faded ghost mural and adding new panels signage for the current business. This works really well in the photo below of the Taproom and The Porch. It is clear what the historic signage is and the new signage is. The new signage can be removed at any time to reveal the historic signage again.