After shining red for the better part of 85 years, the giant sign atop the First National Bank building in downtown St. Paul has a new hue.

The sign is shining an icy blue, fading to white, in honor of the St. Paul Winter Carnival.

Scott Goltz, vice president of building owner Madison Equities, said he changed the color from an app on his phone on Monday. He did it from home and was pleased to hear that someone noticed.

“It’s fading blue to white, right?” he said in a phone interview. “We’re celebrating the Winter Carnival!” Related Articles Minneapolis and St. Paul to add 70 electric car charging stations

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It became possible to change the sign’s color electronically when Madison converted the sign to LED last year. Winter winds partially knocked out the neon lights on the 1931 building about a year ago, and the sign was relit in November at the end of a $12 million energy efficiency upgrade of the whole building.

But the sign didn’t always shine red. For a time in the 1960s and ’70s, the neon lights were white. The sign was turned off entirely in 1973, in the midst of a national energy crisis, to save electricity. It stayed dark for 10 years and was relit in 1983, as part of a $2 million remodeling project. After such a long absence, the relighting was eagerly anticipated in St. Paul.

“You know, I’ve had more questions on the ‘1st’ sign than any other item relating to banking,” bank chairman Charles Arner told the Pioneer Press at the time.

The company considered re-illuminating the sign with less expensive floodlights in 1983, but decided instead to replace the broken white lights with red neon tubes. Restoration cost $50,000, the Pioneer Press reported.

“It’s going to be red instead of white because that’s the way it was originally,” vice president of marketing Neel Johnson said at the time. “The sign is considered a historical landmark, and we wanted it to be restored to its original condition.”

Another first was marked Jan. 26, when the three sides of the LED sign lit up one-by-one again the way the old neon sign did, giving it the appearance of rotating high above the city. The panels of the old sign were lit by a rotating mechanical spindle, Goltz said. The new sign “rotates” by means of an electronic timer that took a little extra time to program.

Goltz said the sign will go back to red at the end of the Winter Carnival, but he might try a different color in March — for St. Patrick’s Day.

This article has been revised to say that the lights in the ‘1st’ sign once were white and for 10 years were off entirely. Previously the story said the lights had always shone red.