Telegraph Pole Effigies

Reprinted from "INSULATORS - Crown Jewels of the Wire", October 1976, page 27

M. W. Hunter of Dubois, Pennsylvania, sent us the following small excerpt from Dictionary of American Antiques by Carl W. Drepperd, published by Award Books, New York:

"Telegraph pole effigies: In 1840's when telegraph poles were first set up in town and village streets, they were planed, painted, and surmounted with carved effigies of doves, eagles, horses, Indians, busts of famed people, pigs, roosters, et cetera. Many such carved wood figures severed from pole tops are today revered as 'primitive' carvings. Every pole in Portsmouth, Ohio, for example, in 1848, was so embellished. This is an almost forgotten phase of street decoration and the camouflaging of what have eventually become eyesores on our streets."