That inappropriately-located-by-a-high-school Grain Belt sign is on the market. Already refurbished for $125K 20 years ago, the sellers are hoping to find someone willing to light the sign again. This deal has Schubert Theater written all over it — does anyone have a couple hundred grand lying around to refurb it?
Grain Belt Sign for Sale
Oct 2 2009 — 1:56pm
5 Reader Comments
3:38 pm
I wish WCCO would buy it, put it on our roof, turn the rooftop garden into a bar, and we’d start making some real money at this joint.
9:55 pm
That would be so cool.
11:35 pm
Funny you say that Jason D. because as I understand it, the Grain Belt Beer sign now on Nicollet Island first graced the rooftop of the Marigold Ballroom at 13th and Nicollet, not too far away from the current WCCO-TV building.
11:08 am
Chris,
Can you tell me why the sign was originally on that building?
11:44 am
Hmmm. Maybe some urban detective work is necessary:
Wikipedia says the billboard first appeared on Nicollet Island just after Prohibition (i.e. after 1932). The bottle cap wasn’t added to the corporate logo until 1938, according to the Grain Belt site.
Btw, the Marigold was the site of then-WAMD radio’s first broadcast in 1925. We know that station now as KSTP-AM.