During a typical bike ride from Downtown Houston to Herman Park, Joey Sanchez noticed that many sidewalks still featured the historic blue tile street signs. He started photographing the signs throughout the city, noting that other Houstonians were just as interested in these hidden gems as he was. In 2015, he launched the Blue Tile Project, using social media and geo-tagging to catalogue the city’s remaining blue tile signs before they faded into history.

Sanchez recently spoke with us about the blue tiles, what drew him to preservation, and the future of the Blue Tile Project.

Can you give us a little history of Houston’s blue tiles?

The blue tile street signs are the original street markers of the first paved streets of Houston. Located inside the historic central core of Houston "inside the loop" you will find the oldest blue tile street signs, dating back to the early 1920s. They continued to build blue tile street signs into the curbs of Houston until the 1960s. These blue tiles are a time period piece dating back to a young city. Now the 4th largest city in America, we are going to bring the blue tiles back to the Bayou City.