Woodbridge, Virginia

Too Much History:   Geographers would attribute this example of placard proximity to agglomeration economies.  What economy is achieved?  You can read three markers with only one stop of the car.  Needless to say, you couldn't read all three (or even one) on a pass-by.  [2011]

Essington, Pennsylvania

Eternal Life on the Landscape:  Governor of New Sweden, Johann Printz, was the William Penn of his time.  With a full-form statue, Printz takes his place as one of the main characters in the European colonization of the Atlantic seaboard.  The text beneath his feet reads like a resume for his next position.  [2008]

London, England

Eternal Life on the Landscape:  Paul Julius Reuter, founder of the eponymous news agency, died in 1899, but a full bust in front of London's Royal Exchange keeps his memory alive.  His pioneering work in gathering and transmitting news turned heads towards London and helped to make it the city it is today.  [2009]

Washington, DC

Eternal Life on the Landscape:  The name is Lajos Kossuth, and his visage leaps off the wall of the Kossuth House in a bas relief sculpture.  From his niche, 'the father of Hungarian democarcy' has been watching over the Dupont Circle neighborhood since the 1930s.  Democracy has a history and Kossuth is part of it.  [2012]

New York, New York

Eternal Life on the Landscape: On the landscape, immortality comes closer when a picture supplements the name.  Richard Tucker Park, on Broadway, honors the legacy of a world-class tenor in a world-class city.  It is so American to extol individual achievement in our historical marker programs.  [2012]

Cincinnati, Ohio

Eternal Life on the Landscape:  Hank Williams will live forever in downtown Cincinnati, where "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" was recorded at the Herzog.  Erecting a historical marker is one way we keep people around long after they have passed.  Of course, this isn't the only marker on which Williams' name appears.  [2012]

London, England

Tower Hill Sundial:  The Wooden O is what Shakespeare called the Globe Theatre.  Now, it has been commemorated under foot in London's Bronze O, the outer ring of the Tower Hill Sundial.  Roadside markers present "history in a square."  Here's variation on a theme:  history in an O.  [2009]