It may be the most talked about dirt mound in recent history, and community leaders are hoping it continues to draw attention for years to come.
City workers have been busy constructing a hill on Highway 82, approaching the city limits from Starkville. Monday, crews from the Public Works Department will begin laying the foundation for a welcome sign.
The brick, marble and concrete sign will feature the city name and slogan: “The Friendly City.” It will be constructed by the UPS Store Sign Shop and should be complete within a month, said City Engineer Kevin Stafford. The blue Mississippi Department of Transportation sign next to it will be removed at a cost not to exceed $3,500.
The sign was the brainchild of the Columbus-Lowndes Development Link during a retreat several years ago, said Penny Bowen, treasurer of the Link and owner of Bella Interiors.
Valued at nearly $20,000, the sign was paid for with a $10,000 allotment from the city’s beautification fund, in-kind services from the city’s Public Works Department and materials and labor donated by various local businesses.
Bowen designed it, and the city will landscape and maintain it.
Stafford said the project represents a good conglomeration of community leaders who have spent the past year reviewing plans and discussing potential sites. In addition to the Link and the city’s beautification committee, representatives from Main Street Columbus and the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau also helped.
Having a welcome sign at each of the entryways was an idea suggested by a charrette team which visited in September 2009 to study the city and suggest improvements, but Mayor Robert Smith said he’s wanted to erect a sign since he entered office.
“Even small cities — some might not have more than 500 people in the city — and they have a welcome sign,” Smith said Thursday afternoon. “I think it’s a real nice, first-class sign.”
The sign will be 35 feet wide and 6 feet high. Materials were donated by Columbus Brick Co., Columbus Marble Works and Willcutt Block and Supply Inc.
“It has a mature look, very durable, it’s not going to be some flimsy aluminum sign,” Stafford said. “These are very high-quality construction materials. As a front door to the city, it speaks highly of the process that was put into it.”
Both the top of the sign and the sign itself will be curved, mimicking the wave action of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, Bowen said.
“We wanted it to have kind of a more clean, progressive look because of our town and the new industries that have come,” she said. “We’ve become a more progressive town, but we wanted the local materials to reflect our heritage.”
Seven or eight different designs were considered, and every aspect of the sign was examined, from lettering to lighting, Stafford said.
If all goes well, drivers can expect to see two more entryway signs constructed — one at the intersection of Highway 45 North and Highway 373, near Columbus Middle School, and one on Highway 82, headed toward the Mississippi-Alabama line.
“Our goal was to make the city a more beautiful place, and hopefully we’ve done that,” Bowen said.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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