The 17-foot high by 40-foot wide Jim Thorpe – Gateway to the Poconos billboard, that has alerted northbound drivers on Rt. 476 for over a decade, was razed Tuesday. A larger, double-faced billboard will replace it later this month.

A five-man crew from Adams Outdoor Advertising used a crane to remove four-foot sections and place the sections onto a pick-up truck. The removal of the panels began at 8 a.m. and was completed by 9:30 a.m. The structural steel framework will be removed over the next few days.

According to Mary Crocker - real estate representative for Adams Outdoor Advertising, “The parts for the new billboard should be delivered next week and up by the end of the month.”

Jack Sturm - Chairman of the Billboard Committee for the Jim Thorpe Chamber of Commerce headed the project. “We have been working for nearly four years to get this billboard replaced,” said Sturm.

“The existing billboard helped not only to bring people to Jim Thorpe, but it has helped the entire Carbon County,” said Sturm. “People have come into my wife, Elaine’s, shop and told her they stopped in because they saw the billboard.

But the 13-year-old billboard was showing its age. The coloring had faded, the paint was peeling, and a section was missing in the lower right corner. Sturm and fellow Chamber member, John Drury, began soliciting Chamber members for contributions toward a new billboard. They raised $3,200, far short of the costs for a replacement billboard.

The original billboard was conceived by a Rt. 903 business group coordinated by Pocono Whitewater. They raised $6,000 toward erecting a billboard at its current Washington Township location on top of an old slate pile.

Unable to obtain the necessary permits, they asked the Jim Thorpe Chamber of Commerce to pursue the project and donated the initial seed money. The Chamber appointed Sturm and Drury to manage the project. They raised $12,000 for the billboard, using a design by David Price of Jim Thorpe, and obtained a ten-year initial agreement with Washington Township. The billboard would go up without lighting, which the Chamber could not afford to install at the time.

The project nearly faltered when Sturm discovered that a new roadway was required to access the summit of the slate pile. Agnes McCarthy arranged for motel owner and contractor, Pete Mooney, to build the road for $2,500. “It was half the price we expected to pay,” said Sturm who helped r5aise the additional monies.

The construction was performed by Adams Outdoor Advertising and completed in 1984. AThe ten-year lease with Washington Township was extended for a second ten years in 2004. The sign had received no maintenance in the meanwhile.

The new billboard, at 17-foot high by 48-foot wide structure will be eight feet wider than the one it replaced. The old sign was 12-foot above the slate pile; the new one will rise 30-foot above the slates. It will illuminated and accept advertisements on both faces.

When Drury and Sturm had only raised $3,200 of an estimated $40,000 project, they realized they needed a creative solution. They came up with a way that the Chamber could have a better billboard at a low cost, provide additional revenue to Washington Township, and benefit Adams Outdoor Advertising.

Sturm asked Washington Township if they would accept Adams Outdoor Advertising as a partner. He suggested making the new billboard a double-sided board. This was desirable to Adams who could sell the valuable space, and would benefit the township with an additional source of income.

After the smoke of negotiations cleared, Adams agreed to install a lighted double-sided billboard at no cost, and to rent the face visible to northbound traffic, to the Chamber for $400 annually. Adams Outdoor Advertising would own the billboard and rent it to the Chamber on a 20-year lease. They would be free to rent the reverse face. The lease of the property would be between Washington Township and Adams Outdoor Advertising. The new billboard is estimated at $45,000.

When the new billboard is completed in late October, it will sport a design created by Chamber member volunteers Dan Hugos and Vincent DeGiosio, which features a couple bicycling, a spotlight of the couple sharing a romantic evening, and an inset of the Asa Packer Mansion’s belvedere. The design will be printed on four-foot wide sections of wrapped-tight vinyl at a cost of $2,000. Sturm hopes to update the sign every three to four years.

“We are ecstatic about it, because it’s been a long haul,” Sturm said. “It’s been a lot of hard work, with a lot of people, and a lot of meetings attended over the last four years.“