Collage by Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Signs are erected seemingly with one purpose: to sell things. Maybe its tickets to the latest blockbuster movie. Or new home appliances. Or trendy sportswear.

But the best signs do more than move products: They enter our civic psyche, becoming much more than part of the landscape. Great signs say something about who we are, and even what we aspire to be. Think about the landmark “Go By Train” sign that glows above Union Station. It’s practically impossible to imagine Portland without it, even though trains are no longer the preferred mode of transportation for most folks.

But few things last forever. Businesses close, and buildings get demolished, taking their iconic signs with them. Here are 19 beloved Portland signs (including a couple of unforgettable murals) that have faded into the history books, but still shine brightly in our hearts.

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White Satin Sugar, White Stag and Made In Oregon signs

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Collage by Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

Portland’s most-iconic sign is the “Portland, Oregon/Old Town” sign that hangs high above the west end of the Burnside Bridge. It’s been featured in “Portlandia,” and it’s become one of the city’s most-recognized landmarks. But it has had numerous makeovers over the decades, and its previous incarnations offer a backdrop to the massive changes Portland went through in the back half of the 20th Century.

The sign, which was created by Ramsey Signs in 1940, originally hawked White Satin Sugar, and featured the brand’s logo. At the time, White Satin was promoted as “Oregon’s Own and Only Sugar,” but that distinction faded over the years. White Satin’s parent company Amalgamated Sugar, now based in Idaho, still makes sugar, but it’s mostly sold as house brands for various grocery stores.

In 1959, a deer was added to the sign, and the lettering was changed to sell White Stag Sportswear, which produced skiwear that was popular in the 1950s and ‘60s.

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Fredrick D. Joe, The Oregonian/OregonLive

By the 1990s, the company that owned the White Stag name had moved out of Portland entirely, and the sign became dilapidated, featuring many burned-out bulbs, and lettering that was often not illuminated. In 1997, the sign received a massive makeover to promote Made In Oregon stores, and was modified to its current look in 2010. Keeping with tradition, a red nose is added to the deer every holiday season.

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7Up signs on Sandy

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Motoya Nakamura, The Oregonian/OregonLive

During the second half of the 20th Century, drivers along Northeast Sandy Boulevard got two different pitches to “Drink 7Up.” The first was a massive sign on top of the art deco 7Up bottling plant that was built in 1941 at 14th and Sandy.

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Marv Bondarowicz, The Oregonian/OregonLive

The second was at the gateway to the Hollywood District, atop a bottle-shaped building that was once home to a milk company.

The Hollywood District 7Up sign was replace by an ad for Budweiser in 2003 (subsequently replaced in 2013). The sign on the bottling plant originally rotated, though it was welded in place in the wake of the 1962 Columbus Day storm. In 2010, Portland Bottling Company replaced the 7Up bottle with a green yerba mate drink, and covered up the lettering to promote other products bottled at the plant (and a nearby self-storage facility – go figure!).

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Waddle’s Restaurant’s adorable duckling

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo

The Hayden Island hotspot featured a massive sign, complete with a clock, that implored drivers on Interstate 5 to “Eat Now at Waddle’s.” Adorning the sign was a bib-wearing cartoon duckling – beyond cute! The restaurant, which was known for pancakes and seriously good biscuits and gravy, closed in the early 2000s, and was replaced by a Hooters. The massive sign has been reworked to promote the wings restaurant, but it has none of the charm of the Waddle’s duckling.

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Bagdad Theater’s jaw-dropping street sign

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo

This glorious Southeast Hawthorne District theater opened in 1927, and continues to show movies today as part of the McMenamins chain of unique pubs and theaters. When it first opened, the theater featured an illuminated sign that extended across Hawthorne Boulevard, signaling to the neighborhood and the greater city that the $100,000 theater was Portland’s "Oasis of entertainment."

The street-crossing sign, like similar ones downtown, would be gone within a few decades, and the massive sign that stood on top of the theater was also later removed.

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Beets Auto Body Inc.’s sign and those ominous wrecked cars

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Jason Simms, Special to The Oregonian/OregonLive

One of the landmarks of the Montavilla neighborhood until recently was the sign for Beets Auto Body shop, which featured the face of the owner in the shape of a Beet. The sign inspired a hilarious comic sketch by Portland’s 3rd Floor comedy troupe. But the shop hoped to inspire people not to drink and drive with its display of spectacularly wrecked cars. The business closed a few years ago, and plans are underway for apartments at the site.

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Broadway Cinemas’ block-long marquee

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Kraig Scattarella, The Oregonian/OregonLive

This massive downtown theater opened in 1926, and featured more than 2,300 seats, making it the largest movie theater in Portland at the time. The theater cost $1 million, and featured an elaborate block-long marquee featuring two-story letters that made Southwest Broadway glow at night. But the years weren’t kind to the theater, and by the 1980s, it was a dilapidated shadow of its former self showing 99-cent double-features, with the once-glittering marquee a sea of burned-out bulbs and peeling paint.

The Broadway closed in 1988, and the building was demolished, making way for a high-rise office building.

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Portland Civic Theatre’s neon marquee

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo

Longtime Portland theatergoers still carry a torch for Portland Civic Theatre, which performed on various stages throughout the city from the 1920s until its closure in 1990. Many of those performances took place in a Goose Hollow neighborhood theater directly across from what’s now the Hotel DeLuxe. The original neon marquee was replaced when the theater was remodeled in the late 1960s. In 1992, the building was demolished to make way for a parking garage. Only a memorial plaque on the garage serves as a reminder of the theater that was once here.

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Corno’s Food Market’s giant produce

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Bob Ellis, The Oregonian/OregonLive

From 1951 to 1995, giant produce adorned the roof of Corno's Food Market, making the grocery store a landmark on Southeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The store was featured in a key scene in the 1980s Burt Reynolds film "Breaking In.," in which the late actor played an aging robber.

The large wooden fruit remained on the building after the store closed, but the building was demolished for good in 2006.

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Greek Cusina’s purple octopus

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Fredrick D. Joe, The Oregonian/OregonLive

There’s no way you could miss this longtime Greek restaurant, thanks to the two-story inflatable purple octopus that adorned the outside. The downtown restaurant, which opened in 1987, featured unremarkable Greek food, and closed in 2010 after owner Ted Papas fought with the city over fines related to numerous fire code violations. The silly octopus ended up on the roof of a barber shop in Southwest Portland.

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Sayler's Old Country Kitchen's rotating steak sign

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo

This venerable steakhouse still serves up its 72-ounce steak challenge. But the rotating T-bone sign has been replaced by a stationary sign, which doesn’t have the magic. Sayler's opened in 1946 and is still going strong at its current location a few blocks up Southeast Stark Street from the original.

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Greyhound Bus Terminal’s quartet of neon doggies

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Claudia Howell, The Oregonian/OregonLive

From 1938 to 1985, bus travelers headed to downtown’s Greyhound Bus Terminal, which was located on Southwest Taylor Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues before moving near Northwest’s Union Station. The original terminal was easy to spot, thanks to four 350-pound porcelainized-metal greyhounds that dominated the terminal’s signage. After they were removed, One of the Greyhound signs found its way into the collection of the now-defunct American Advertising Museum.

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Lotus Café and Cardroom’s Roaring 20s mural

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Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

The Hotel Lotus opened in 1906 as the Hotel Albion, and its ground-floor café began its run in 1924, and would remain open until 2016. It changed its focus several times during its long run, becoming a popular nightspot in the 1990s. A mural on the back of the building evoked the Roaring 20s era, complete with dancing flappers.

The mural met the wrecking ball last year when the historic building was leveled to make way for an office building and a boutique hotel.

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Rickashaw Charlie's

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo

During the 1960s, Portland’s Chinatown was a thriving part of the city’s dining scene, and bright neon signs gave the neighborhood plenty of flash. One of the most-distinctive signs belonged to Rickashaw Charlie's, which opened in 1966, and quickly became a popular night-spot. The menu featured a mix of Cantonese and American food, and the lounge was the place for stiff drinks and live piano nightly.

Rickashaw Charlie’s became embroiled in scandal in the 1980s, when it was the focus of a cocaine trafficking investigation. Lee sold the business in 1986 to pay legal expenses after he was convicted of conspiring to deal cocaine. The neon rickshaw came down, and was replaced by the elaborate neon for House of Louie, a dim sum spot that remained open until last year.

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Packy’s Old Town mural

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Benjamin Brink, The Oregonian/OregonLive

When the Oregon Zoo's much-loved elephant Packy died in 2017, it felt like Portland lost a bit of its soul. In truth, the city started saying goodbye to the celebrated pachyderm almost a decade ago, when a wonderful mural depicting Packy on the side of the Skidmore Fountain Building in Old Town was destroyed.

The mural, which loomed over the west end of the Burnside Bridge, was painted in 1990 by North Pacific Sign & Design, and featured a close up of Packy's distinctive trunk and ears.

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo

When the building became the new headquarters for Mercy Corps in 2009, the $25 million renovation included cutting numerous windows into the exterior wall, as well as restoring the crumbling bricks. To preserve the historic building, the mural version of Packy had to be put down. Poor Packy!

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Wyland's 'Whaling Wall'

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Portland City Archives, A200

In the 1990s, downtown Portland's Fox Theatre featured a large mural of whales that was loved by legions. In 1993, the Hawaii-based artist Wyland painted one of his

on the 120-foot back of the theater. The mural, called "Orcas of the Oregon Coast," showed a pod of orcas swimming through Pacific Northwest waters, with one of the whales breaching.

The artist said that he viewed the murals as a way to promote environmentalism, which was charming, since nothing was being sold.

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The Oregonian/OregonLive file photo

But there was no protecting Wyland’s mural from the march of progress. Both the Fox Theatre and its Wyland “Whaling Wall” were demolished in 1997 to make way for the new high-rise Fox Tower. All that’s left of the painted pod of orcas are photos and memories.

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Tom Peterson’s Super Store

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Jim Warner, The Oregonian/OregonLive

No look back on long-gone landmark signs could be complete without mention of Tom Peterson's Super Store on Southeast 82nd Avenue. The mega-store, where you could pick up appliance and electronics, featured a sign showing owner Tom Peterson's face and distinctively 1950s-style haircut.

The store faced shaky financial times in the 1990s, and scaled back operations after filing for bankruptcy protection. But Tom Peterson’s would continue until 2009. Peterson passed away in 2016.

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More Portland history

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Collage by Grant Butler, The Oregonian/OregonLive

If you're hungry for more of Portland's past, you're in luck:

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-- Grant Butler

gbutler@oregonian.com

503-221-8566; @grantbutler

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