Ever since the 1960s, commuters on Interstate 5 driving by Exit 72 in Napavine have seen politically-charged right wing messages prominently displayed on the now famous — or perhaps infamous, depending on who you ask — two-sided billboard featuring Uncle Sam.
Now, the billboard’s property is up for sale, according to Chehalis RE/MAX real estate associate Israel Jimenez, who posted a listing for the land on his Facebook page.
“Who wants to own the iconic Uncle Sam sign property? … This 3.54-acre property benefits from 52,000+ vehicles passing daily, ensuring prime visibility between Portland and Seattle,” Jimemez wrote. “The site features highway frontage, excellent access, full utility connections and a fenced business area for security.”
Located at 1393 Rush Road in Napavine, the fenced business area is occupied by the I-5 Motorsports golf cart dealership, which currently leases the land.
The asking price for the 3.54-acre lot, which includes 2,880-square-foot and 384-square-foot buildings within the fenced business area, is $2.5 million. The lot’s assessed value is $2,362,400 according to the Lewis County Parcels website.
Additionally, Jimenez stated the owners are looking to sell their adjacent 30.82-acre lot at 1336 Rush Road along with the Uncle Sam billboard property.
Businesses on this lot include Ramblin Jack’s Rib Eye, Subway and Burger King restaurants, the Flyways Rush Road Chevron and Napavine Travel Plaza truck stop and Avenue Espresso Rush Road, all with current leases.
While businesses are already there, the majority of the land remains undeveloped with “strong potential for expansion or redevelopment,” Jimenez said in the post.
The Chronicle contacted Jimenez for more information on the properties on Thursday, March 6. Both lots are owned by Hamilton Corner LLC, which is still under the ownership of the Hamilton family, descendants of Chehalis turkey and cattle rancher Alfred Hamilton.
A polarizing figure throughout his life, Alfred Hamilton first put up the Uncle Sam billboard on his I-5-adjacent farm in the 1960s. Now, his family is in the process of repositioning the two assets, Jimenez told The Chronicle on Thursday.
He added the asking price for the 1336 Rush Road property was $13 million. Its assessed value on the Lewis County Parcels website was $9,182,800.
“I have offers on them, and am expecting some on the 1393 (Rush Road property) before our review date on the 21st,” Jimenez said.
For more information on the property listings, visit Jimenez’s Facebook page at https://tinyurl.com/yasx4vwk or call or text him at 360-269-2083.
The billboard’s contentious history
As for the notorious Uncle Sam billboard, which has garnered national headlines for some of its more provocative messages, it was originally put up in protest.
In the Nov. 24, 1967, edition of The Daily Chronicle, it was first reported Alfred erected the billboard “in apparent protest against a federal-state move to rid sections of interstate highways of billboards.”
While Uncle Sam had yet to make his appearance on it, a photo showed the billboard displaying the message, “There are no billboards in Russia!”
A small advertisement for Alfred’s turkeys was also located on the bottom left-hand corner of the billboard.
Alfred got into a legal battle with both state and federal officials to keep his billboard up along I-5. Critics said the billboards violated both the federal Highway Beautification Act of 1965 and the Washington state Scenic Vistas Act, and that Alfred wasn’t really using it to actually advertise for his farm.
It was during this time Uncle Sam was painted on the billboard to accompany the political messages. And while Alfred did have to move the sign several times, it remained standing, prominently viewable from I-5.
Other messages displayed included “Get U.S. out of the United Nations,” “Non-communist straw for sale,” “Don’t give canal to Panama, give them (Henry) Kissinger,” and “Women are meant to be cherished not liberated,” as reported by The Associated Press.
Then, in December 1979, the Washington state Court of Appeals ruled in Alfred’s favor, allowing him to keep the billboard, stating it did not violate the state’s Scenic Vistas Act.
Alfred would continue to raise ire amongst both government officials and some of the more liberal motorists traveling on I-5 between famously liberal cities such as Seattle and Portland with his provocative billboard messages.
The messages included other right wing talking points on abortion, gun control, LGBTQ+ issues, Russian aggression and more — throughout the rest of his life until his death on Nov. 7, 2004, at the age of 84.
Alfred told The Oregonian in a Nov. 27, 1985, article that many of the billboard’s messages came from the John Birch Society, an anti-communist, right-wing political advocacy group founded in 1958 that he was a member of.
“I am not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking, but I want to make people think,” Alfred said in 1985. “If they look up the information to see if I am right, chances are they will wind up agreeing with me.”
While he had received some threats, including one to burn down his farm, over messages displayed on the billboard, Alfred told The Oregonian that 95% of the responses he got were favorable at the time.
He finally retired from farming in 1995 and sold most of his property in the area, except for a handful of parcels, including the one with his Uncle Sam billboard.
In a 2004 New York Times article on Alfred shortly after his death, his family stated the billboard was first put up in the early 1960s by Alfred after both he and his wife, Ruth Hamilton, were angered by the government’s spending on welfare.
Shortly after that, First Lady Claudia “Lady Bird” Johnson, married to President Lyndon B. Johnson, convinced the U.S. Congress to pass the Highway Beautification Act of 1965, restricting billboards and junk yards along highways.
Being a rancher, leasing billboard space to businesses on his land along I-5 was one of Alfred’s extra sources of income, which the Highway Beautification Act threatened, his son Larry Hamilton and daughter Sherryl Zurek told the New York Times in 2004.
“He was very political and very conservative," Zurek said. "The government did a lot of things to him that it probably should not have done, and he liked having the billboard there."
"I know the billboard had a lot of repercussions politically, from the state and the feds on down, because he voiced his opinions and sometimes he stepped on toes," Larry added.
Zurek also told The Seattle Times in 2017 that I-5’s original construction shaped Alfred’s disdain for the government, as the freeway cut his farm in half and he was only given “pennies on the dollar” for the property the state needed to purchase from him for its construction.
While they didn’t share all of his political views, Alfred’s family — presumably his son, Mike Hamilton, according to the 2017 Seattle Times article — did continue periodically changing the billboard’s message to match contemporary political events following his death.
In the summer of 2020, multiple petitions to remove the billboard circulated, including one gathering more than 75,000 signatures, but were unsuccessful. Counter petitions calling for the billboard to remain standing and be declared a historical landmark were also circulated.
In June 2020, an arson attempt occurred trying to burn the billboard down, according to Dan Mahoney, then-chief of Lewis County Fire District 5.
The arsonist tried to ignite the billboard’s base poles, and while the poles were slightly charred, the fire was extinguished before substantial damage occurred.
“We did an in-house investigation and the sheriff’s department is doing an investigation,” Mahoney previously said to The Chronicle. “That’s about all we know.”
Shortly after, amid rumors another attempt to destroy the billboard might be carried out, around 100 protestors, including some who were armed, gathered to defend the billboard.
Among those in attendance at the protest included then-candidate for Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope and Lewis County Sheriff Rob Snaza.
“Eighty-thousand, that’s the population of Lewis County,” Snaza said during the 2020 protest. “We know that a lot of these people signing this petition are not from the local area. I think the frustration you’re seeing is that locals are saying, ‘We still believe in our First Amendment rights.’”
The billboard’s messages appear to have last been changed sometime in 2021, with a side displaying the message “How many Americans will we leave behind in Ukraine” to southbound I-5 commuters and the other side stating “No one died in WW2 so you could show papers to buy food” to northbound I-5 commuters.
