Quick: Where is Bedell, NY?
According to the Historical Society for the Town of Middletown's Tin Horn blog, there used to be an enormous sign with letters 20-feet high answering that question for strangers approaching the intersection of Little Red Kill Road and Big Red Kill Road in the town of Middletown in Delaware County.
(Have no idea where that is? It's nestled between Fleischmanns to the south, Roxbury to the east, and Halcott to the north. And you're excused for wondering -- this part of Delaware County is very confusing. My attempt at mapping its location is here.)
The Bedell sign was on Linda Kelly Armour's great-uncle's land in Bedell. Armour was intimately familiar with just how much effort it took to keep the sign's giant letters visible, she writes:
Anyone seeing the rocks from the road might imagine the letters to be at least 5 feet high. My cousin Karen (Finch) Hull and I knew from experience (since we walked the hills on his farm regularly as we played outdoors) that each letter was at least 20 feet high. As they weathered we thought they should be repainted. One of our hill treks took us up there with paint cans and brushes to repaint them. It took us longer than expected. There were a heck of a lot of stones to paint!
Despite their hugeness, the letters are gone now, replaced by a road. Armour is putting out a call for volunteers to repaint it:
Would anyone like to re-create the Bedell sign? There is ample room on my father’s land, and he’s agreeable to seeing it up there again.
To contact Armour, get her email address from her blog post by clicking here.
