What the strange scrawls on the light post at the QT mean


It's August of 2021, and I've been stopping at the new QT (Quick Trip) in Peoria, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) quite a lot lately for my morning coffee. I watched them build the place, and of course was fascinated by the Tonka Toys plowing up dirt for several months. They did a great job, and it's everything that a modern building like this should be. It's still so new that it practically has that "new car smell" - if buildings can have that.


So when I noticed what looked like random scratches on a light post, and wondered if it had been vandalized, I took a closer look. It's actually a company name, which I looked up when I got home. The company is LSI Industries. You really do have to catch it at the just the right angle of the light to see it, and I'm proud to say that I did it in just one shot, with my phone. Below the scrawl (I'm sure they meant well), you can see in lower case letters lsi-industries.com, which is their website. I visited their website, which helped, but until I got the help of my top history adventuring friend, there was no clue as to what the letters stood for. He found that they stood for "Lighting Solutions". Well, that's what the first two letters stand for, not sure about the last one, unless it's Lighting Solutions Industries Industries", which it could be. Update August 8th: Here's what I learned from the Director of Marketing: The LSI Industries company name was originally, Lighting Systems Incorporated. The letters, LSI, were always used as an acronym. However, after the company grew and acquired a graphics company in the 1980s, the original name was permanently shortened to LSI, but with the added Industries.

I suppose using the acronym just makes sense, because if I were to go pick up my car at the shop and say, "Is my Bavarian Motor Works ready?" I'd probably just get blank looks, and I'd deserve it. Although because of my age, I do have trouble not calling KFC "Kentucky Fried Chicken". And who made your computer? International Business Machines? Do you still watch the Columbia Broadcasting System? OK, enough of that! Well, one more: I think I'll go for a dive with my Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus tank!


By the way, for you younger folks, the number there is an 800 number, which companies used to have when it cost extra money to make a long-distance call, in the days before cell phones. It's not absolutely necessary anymore, but it's a nice touch. And of course, there's the American flag, which presumably means that it was made in America, or at least that it's an American company.


The sticker there towards the bottom, which appears to be temporary, has the date which I assume is when it was manufactured. Or it may have been when it was installed? If you know, please tell me. UL means "Underwriters Laboratories" (which was founded in 1894), and it looks like it's a luminaire pole. The date is 12/2020.

I wonder how long this light will remain in service? Other than some rust on the bolt that holds on the nameplate, it seems to be pretty well-made. I only go to the QT in the daytime, but I'd imagine that it lights up very nicely at night. I did read a bit of the history of the company on their website, which goes back to 1976, when the founder disliked how dark gas stations seemed to be at night. In my lifetime gas stations have always been very brightly lit, so this company must have made a big difference.

How about that! Thanks for going to the QT with me today!
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is ...
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the...
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me...
Read more