Tree Signs, pt4: Owens Illinois

Owens Illinois is world known for its long history of glass containers. Well, they also made cardboard boxes at one time, and owned a lot of timberland to support their mills. At one time, packaging companies like OI and Continental diversified their packaging business lines....so that meant getting into steel, glass, and paper (this was before EVERYTHING came in a plastic bubble!). Eventually, the OI company decided to divest their Forest Products Division, and their Florida lands were sold to a division of Great Northern Nekoosa Corporation (I'll show their signs some other time). After a few years, Nekoosa was acquired by Georgia-Pacific. The sign on the left is in bad shape, it is a Game Development Area sign which designated areas on OI timberlands that were open to public permitted hunting. I literally had to save this sign from obscurity. The yellow paint was flaking off terribly. I gently washed it and sprayed many, thick, liberal, coats of clearcoat sealer to preserve it. The sign in the middle is the typical OI boundary sign that was commonly used, the sign is dated '69. Finally, the sign on the right is a later style, after the Company changed its corporate logo from a nested I-inside-O......to the the block lettered O-I style, this sign is dated 1986. I've also seen a similar newer style OI sign where the letters O and I are blue and red (or maybe red and blue?). All of the signs were made by Scioto Signs of Kenton, O. Even though OI is still in business making glass and plastic containers, they no longer are in the forestry and paper business.