In February 2005 the Frog Signs were taken down. They were seen from Interstate 80 Westbound coming into Davis. Done in a style like the Burma Shave signs that were prevalent during the Route 66 days (1930s to early 1960s), they were put up by Lyon Real Estate, a local Real Estate company owned by 1977 UC Davis graduate Mike Lyon. The signs were also visible from the bike trail that goes between Davis and Sacramento (also via County Road 32). The signs seemingly glowed and sparkled at night, and were the most visible display of the city's commitment to being a nuclear free zone.
The new signs are:
Take the footwork out of it
Keep each other very well
Make any stepsister jealous
No more huffing and puffing
Live happily ever after
2005-01-25 22:48:51 I'm not so sure about the nuclear free what with the crocker NUCLEAR lab at uc davis —BryanBell—— 2005-01-25 23:26:19 all you see at night is the frog...it's creepy. Nuclear free is an odd thing to advertise about a town...unless the town was near Chernobyl or something. —RohiniJasavala
2005-01-26 00:02:54 maybe they are trying to say that Davis' population is composed primarily of Prokaryotes —RaynatoCastro
2005-01-26 11:48:10 I seem to remember more signs a few years ago, but I could be mistaken. —TarZxf
2005-02-07 13:08:45 I am so sad... Gone is a Davis landmark. I'm glad someone took the pictures before the signs were taken down. —SummerSong
2005-02-07 14:58:39 Too bad they are gone. I was looking forward to seeing the signs when I travel to CA this Spring. —BradCuppy
2005-02-08 10:51:39 Now they have crappy new signs. They're really crappy. Their new ones have something to do with faery tales. And also does anyone know anything about the "Keep out hazardous materials" EPA Superfund Site on 2nd street? —JaimeRaba
2005-02-09 19:30:49 As annoying as they were at 12am on a Saturday night after clubbing i have to admit i will miss the neon frogs boasting about the non existant "nuclear free" Davis. —ArlishaAdams
2005-02-09 20:38:02 Well, I think technically, the University is not actually part of Davis, but is somehow carved out of the boundaries of the city. —JaimeRaba
2005-02-10 00:09:50 I'd also like to know about that Superfund site on 2nd street. —EdPereira
2005-02-10 02:50:15 I am really sad that they're gone... —AnnieLastname
2005-02-10 15:57:33 Ed - I explained the Superfund site if you're curious. —JabberWokky
2005-02-11 00:27:33 The "Nuclear" in "Nuclear Free" refers to the city's relationship with the creation of nuclear weapons, not ALL nuclear reactions in general. That'd be pretty hard to be free of. —JesseSingh
2005-02-11 19:57:29 http://ehs.ucdavis.edu/enviro/lehr.cfm The university apparently conducted radiation testing on beagles. —AraAroyan
2005-02-12 15:26:35 Those new signs are so commerical! There's no mention of Davis at all. Also, I think there were 5 frog signs, weren't there? —PhilipNeustrom
2005-02-12 16:11:39 I'm pretty sure the 5th frog sign just showed one of the frogs sitting next to a sign with the Lyon logo and address on it. —KayRide
2005-02-12 16:12:39 Awww...I haven't seen that the frogs were gone. The new ones are lame. —BevSykes
2005-02-12 19:07:08 I like the frogs. The new signs, they suck ! —BradCuppy
2005-02-12 20:08:22 The frogs worked better because they shared a common visual theme and had a more readable and uniformly sized lettering. The new ones don't feel like they honor the Burma Shave tradition. —JasonAller
2005-03-15 18:48:32 There was one more sign first. It said something like, "Why did the toad cross the road?" —AllisonEriksen
2005-03-19 16:01:08 Takoma Park in DC advertises that they are Nuclear Free too. I think it's some pseudo-hippie-catering thing. —JenDockter
2005-10-22 09:29:50 I preferred the frog signs too. —SteveDavison
2005-11-01 16:36:23 The City of Davis has declared itself nuclear-free, but it can't enforce that policy on University-owned land. It does enforce it on city-owned roads, however, and that can make it difficult to transport radioactively labelled materials between University locations, regardless of the safety. —MattCzarnowski
2008-07-23 00:12:01 The city of Davis, of course, does not permit the use of sunlight for heat, power generation, growth of food, or generally helping people to see, since photons emitted through a nuclear fusion process are not permitted in a nuclear free zone. ;-) —IDoNotExist
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Nor use smoke detectors, fluorescent watches and clocks, radioisotopes used in tomography, or allow the irradiation of food for sterilization. — JoePomidor
2008-07-23 09:39:04 Not to troll, but it looks like I'm the only one who likes the new signs better than the old signs. I found the frogs garish and embarrassing ("Lyon" at the end of the tunnel?! C'mon...). The new signs have a cute theme, sane colors, and much better branding. Maybe a bit less "Burma Shave"-esque, but the old ones didn't follow the form too exactly, either. —MattJurach
2010-02-12 08:51:03 The signs were extremely corny and garish... and I miss them :) They were yet another one of those quirky, crazy things that makes Davis Davis. —TomGarberson
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