The illustration that has served as the SIA logo since the Society’s inception, is the half-elevation, half-section drawing of the 1873 Troy, N.Y. Gas Light Co. Gasholder House. The Gasholder was one of the sites recorded by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) as part of the Mohawk-Hudson Area Survey during the summer of 1969. That survey was HAER’s pilot project. Eric DeLony was the delineator. Janet Stratton incorporated it into the SIA masthead design.

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There was little debate on the selection of a graphic logo for the Society in 1971.The Troy Gasholder is a bold, simple form that also represents an important 19th-Century industry. That there are few structures of this type left signifies the SIA’s interest in preserving aspects of our vanishing industrial heritage. The metal truss supporting the domed roof of this elegant building signifies our interest in engineering. Use of a HAER drawing symbolizes the close affiliation between HAER and the SIA, both having begun about the same time. In short, the originators of the SIA could think of few images that were as symbolically appropriate and graphically suitable as the Gasholder drawing.

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