Only 7 original McDonald’s golden arches still exist, and one is in N.J. - NJ.com

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This story was originally published in December 2018.

If you’re driving on Route 30 in Camden County just south of the New Jersey Turnpike, and you see a McDonald’s Hamburgers sign mounted on a golden arch, you might want to pull over, even if you’re not hungry.

It’s not the fries or Big Macs that are so special — McDonald’s is known for its strict quality control and uniformity of its food — but the sign itself.

The single-arch marquee is an original version that dates to 1962, and is one of only a half dozen like it from among the 37,000 McDonald’s locations around the world, according to collectors, curators and other sign experts who have been wowed by what may be the Borough of Magnolia’s most widely-renowned piece of architecture.

“I would say it’s a historic treasure,” said Tod Swormstedt, executive director of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. “Especially when there are only a handful left, certainly no more than 10.”

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This McDonald's sign, from about 1962, is incredibly rare, representing a brief transitional period from the use of the Speedee character (the hamburger cartoon) in signage to the "Big M" massive golden-arch design, used from late 1962 to the 1970s. Last week, I posted one of those "Big Ms" I spotted in Norwalk, Connecticut. Today, I present a rare single-arch sign that survives in Magnolia, New Jersey — only a handful remain around the country. One of them, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, is on the National Register of Historic Places. The Magnolia sign, which is in superb shape, was moved from the restaurant’s original location nearby. Kudos to this restaurant for preserving a national treasure. Check out the two shields on either side of the arch -- they are the crest of the founding McDonald's brothers, a design choice of Ray Kroc, who himself would go on to be known as "The Founder" when he took their innovative California roadside hamburger stand and turned it into a global colossus. I photographed another one of these single-arch signs several years ago, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, but that one was removed in 2016 and is said to have gone to a private collection of McMemorabilia. (Scroll way back on my feed to see that one.) This is an important artifact, in the development of McDonald's, and in the roadside vernacular of midcentury America. As argued in the National Register report on the Pine Bluff sign, the single-arch sign represents the embrace by corporate America of modernism (think St. Louis Arch and the widespread use of the parabolic arch in pop culture) and the departure from neon toward fluorescent-lit plastic panels in metal frames. This is a vivid example, too, of the midcentury fascination with signage that stands out from the road. Indeed, the Big M design that succeeded the single-arch signs is even more audacious. The Big M would fade away in the 1970s when a smaller McDonald's sign was attached to a towering pole, promoting the new mansard-roofed, brick-covered restaurants. But examples of the Big M and single-arch signs, though increasingly rare, remain, and are a particular favorite find of mine.

A post shared by Rolando Pujol (@rolandopujol) on Nov 12, 2018 at 1:49pm PST

Among the admirers of Magnolia’s sign is Debra Jane Seltzer, who has driven around the country documenting vintage signs and other examples of American pop culture gradually disappearing from their original settings.

Seltzer hosts the RoadsideArchitecture.com web site, which features several pages on McDonald’s restaurants and signs, including the Magnolia’s.

In a phone interview, Seltzer said the sign originally stood in another part of town, a couple of miles away, where the original McDonald’s building is long gone. The building that now accompanies the sign, a relatively common white stucco structure with a red mansard roof, is not architecturally significant, she said.

The rare single-arch sign in Magnolia, N.J. was moved from its original location, where the restaurant was demolished, to this one, a townhouse-style store, built in 1996.Al Amrhein | For NJ Advance Media

Seltzer said the Magnolia sign is one of just seven remaining single-arch McDonald’s “crest” signs scattered along the byways of America, still bearing the family crest of Richard and Maurice McDonald.

The brothers had founded the chain in California, before they were joined in 1953 by Ray Kroc, who bought them out but kept their name, and built McDonald’s into a global brand. The story was recently dramatized in the ironically titled film, “The Founder,” starring Michael Keaton in the title role as Kroc.

Besides Magnolia’s, the six other remaining crest signs are in Independence, Missouri; Warren and Saint Clair Shores, Michigan; Winter Haven, Florida; Akron, Ohio — though the sign’s crests have been covered; and Pine Bluff, Arkansas, whose sign is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Seltzer and others noted that the Magnolia sign is in remarkably good shape for a 56-year-old outdoor marquee.

“I think it’s very special,” said Seltzer. “It’s one of a very few that are left.”

This replica of an early McDonald's store was built in Mt. Ephraim, Camden County, in 2000. The sign, also a replica, is topped by the image of Speedy, the chain's fleet-footed mascot who predated Ronald McDonald.Enhanced Google photo

Before Ronald, there was Speedy

Before there was Ronald McDonald, the curly-haired clown with the striped socks, there was Speedee, a McDonald’s mascot who personified the concept of fast food when the term was still new. The smiling, fleet-footed burger chef is seen in the photo above, on a reproduction of an early single-arch sign outside a McDonald’s restaurant on South Black Horse Pike in Mt. Ephraim, also in Camden County, just a few miles from Magnolia.

The retro red-and-white-tile restaurant with the twin arches and the sign that goes with it were built in the year 2000, said Seltzer.

“The one in New Jersey is not original,” she said of the Mt. Ephraim location.

The original restaurant that accompanied Magniolia’s 1962 sign would have looked very much the retro structure built in Mt. Ephraim, The design, with its white and red exterior tiles, twin arches and sloping, cantilevered roof, dates to the company’s earliest days under Ray Kroc, and lasted through the 1960s.

The owners of the Mount Ephraim and Magnolia franchises did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for Chicago-based McDonald’s Corporation, Amanda Pisano, said the Mount Ephraim location originally opened in 1962, while the Magnolia restaurant where the crest sign now stands dates to 1996.

They are among 266 McDonald’s now operating in New Jersey, she said. The first one opened in Fair Lawn in 1958.

“I do not have a list or database of other vintage signs in the state,” Pisano wrote in an email.

Built in 1953, this store in Downey, California, is the oldest McDonald's still in service. Note the combined neon and fluorecent-lit Speedy sign.Photo by Brian Hong

The oldest arches still glowing

Authentic versions of that first golden-arch restaurant design are even rarer than single-arch crest signs, according to Seltzer, who documents just two of them: one in San Jose, California, built in 1962; and the oldest McDonald’s still in operation, in Downey, California, which opened in August 1953.

Now, even Mt. Ephraim’s circa 2000 reproduction of the walk-up design has been obscured, after its red, white and yellow exterior and interior were remodeled in McDonald’s latest style, with muted colors, contemporary fixtures and furniture, and large touch screens where customers enter their orders.

“Everyone really liked the old way,” said the manager of the Mt. Ephraim McDonald’s, Danielle Kearney, referring to the vintage style. “But they also like the new way.”

The oldest McDonald’s location still in operation is this walk-up burger stand built in 1953 in Downey, California. It was the second McDonald’s built using the twin-arch design.

The exceptionally rare sign out front features a neon likeness of Speedee, the chain’s original mascot. Speedee was phased out beginning in the early 1960s, and later replaced by the Ronald McDonald clown.

The sign in Magnolia, like others erected in 1962, was among the first to put Speedee to rest.

Speedee was revived on retro reproductions like the one erected in Mt. Ephraim around the turn of the century.

This structure was built around the year 2000 in DePlaines, Illinois, as a replica of the first McDonald's erected by Ray Kroc on the same spot in 1955, which was demolished 29 years later. The replica was disassembled in 2018, with the arches above the roof already gone in this photo.Christopher Placek | The Daily Herald va AP

Remembering when hamburgers were 15 cents

This retro structure was built around the turn of the century in the Chicago suburb of DePlaines, Illinois, as a replica of the first McDonald’s built on the same spot by Ray Kroc in 1955 and demolished 29 years later, according to Seltzer.

The replica served as a McDonald’s museum before being disassembled in the summer of 2018. The tops of the golden arches above the roof line had already been removed when this picture was taken in July.

Helen Bradley, who has lived in Magnolia for 66 of her 89 years and founded the borough historical society in 1990, said the sign’s original location was at the Intersection of Route 30, also known as White Horse Pike, and Jefferson Avenue, less than a mile south of where it now stands. Bradley was living in town when the original McDonald’s opened in 1962.

“I remember the hamburgers were 15 cents,” she said, accurately quoting the price that was spelled out on signs older than Magnolia’s.

Bradley, who lives about a block from the sign’s current location, was unaware of its rarity or significance to the history of McDonald’s or American roadside architecture.

But referring to its relocation in the mid-1990s, she added, “I know that when they moved they said they were taking that sign with them, so they must have known that it was worth something.”

Unlike its Pine Bluff counterpart on the National Register, the Magnolia sign has no historic designation, according to Bradley, who asked to be sent information about the sign’s provenance.

This vintage double-arch sign in Freehold is not nearly as rare as Magnolia's single-arch specimen, but is a throwback nonetheless to the chain's unqualified "Hamburgers" days.Enhanced Google photo

It’s doing what signs are meant to do.'

Another admirer is Dave Waller, a collector in the Boston area who recently bought a vintage McDonald’s sign from the American Sign Museum.

His sign, a single-arch version that includes the old Speedee mascot, was erected in Wichita in 1956 and later salvaged from the demolition of what Waller and Sworstedt, the museum director, believe was the first McDonald’s in Kansas.

Looking at online photographs of the 56-year-old Magnolia sign, Waller said it seemed to be in mint condition.

One thing he admired most about it, he added, was that, “It’s doing what signs are meant to do, and that is advertising the products they were meant to advertise.”

He hopes it will keep doing just that.

“People don’t seem to appreciate things until they’re gone,” Waller said. “And then they say, ‘What happened to that?’”

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Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tips

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