Two young men, by the names of Frank Durward Staley, Sr. and Cecil Crabb, thought it would be both profitable and exciting to start a sign business.

Staley was a highly sociable individual with a natural affinity toward sales and money management. Crabb was a very talented artist. The result of this combination was the new sign company known as Staley & Crabb.

It wasn't long that they were making and installing show cards, banners, and various signs for the movie theatres and many new businesses around Indianapolis.

Within the next few decades, their company was providing large wall displays on multi-story buildings and dispatched several crews, throughout the Midwest, painting the sides of barns with ads such as Mail Pouch Tobacco. Erecting and painting billboards along the railroad tracks also kept them very busy.

1908 | 1927-1934 | World War II |Today | Philosophy