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Toledo, Ohio
United States

Photography / Archive

The images in this archive are public-domain resources, available to download and use for free with no royalties or attribution required. Open any image for complete source and rights information.

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The unilluminated sign

The unilluminated sign

Ken Levin Toledo Postcard Collection / Toledo Lucas County Public Library

The complete light sequence

The complete light sequence

Ken Levin Toledo Postcard Collection / Toledo Lucas County Public Library

The illuminated slogan

The illuminated slogan

Ken Levin Toledo Postcard Collection / Toledo Lucas County Public Library

The lake freighter

The lake freighter

Ken Levin Toledo Postcard Collection / Toledo Lucas County Public Library

The railroad locomotive

The railroad locomotive

Ken Levin Toledo Postcard Collection / Toledo Lucas County Public Library

The unilluminated sign

Archive image / 01

The unilluminated sign

A daylight view of the original rooftop sign and its exposed steel framework above Toledo’s Valentine Building.

Contributor
Toledo Lucas County Public Library
License
No Copyright, Public Domain, United States
Copyright notice
Copyright status outside the United States has not been evaluated.
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The complete light sequence

Archive image / 02

The complete light sequence

A postcard composition showing the illuminated locomotive, slogan, and lake freighter displays that alternated across the sign’s thousands of bulbs.

Contributor
Toledo Lucas County Public Library
License
No Copyright, Public Domain, United States
Copyright notice
Copyright status outside the United States has not been evaluated.
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The illuminated slogan

Archive image / 03

The illuminated slogan

The “You will do better in Toledo” message rendered as a field of yellow and orange electric bulbs against the night sky.

Contributor
Toledo Lucas County Public Library
License
No Copyright, Public Domain, United States
Copyright notice
Copyright status outside the United States has not been evaluated.
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The lake freighter

Archive image / 04

The lake freighter

The sign’s animated lake-freighter display, connecting Toledo’s civic message to the Maumee River, the Great Lakes, and the city’s working waterfront.

Contributor
Toledo Lucas County Public Library
License
No Copyright, Public Domain, United States
Copyright notice
Copyright status outside the United States has not been evaluated.
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The railroad locomotive

Archive image / 05

The railroad locomotive

The sign’s animated locomotive display, built from colored bulbs to depict a train moving through the dark.

Contributor
Toledo Lucas County Public Library
License
No Copyright, Public Domain, United States
Copyright notice
Copyright status outside the United States has not been evaluated.
Download image

Open call / Toledo photography

Show us the city you see.

Toledo deserves an archive made by the people who know it. Send us the storefronts, workers, porches, bridges, signs, factories, neighborhoods, ordinary moments, and strange details you have photographed here.

Contributed photographs must be your original work and ready to be released into the public domain under CC0 1.0. That keeps the archive free for everyone to download, publish, adapt, and carry forward without permission or attribution.

Email your photographs