Saved! Trashed Arby's Hat in Cudahy, Wisconsin, rescued from the Dumpster
An Arby's hat from 1971 was doomed, until a Milwaukee-area man with a love of roadside Americana rescued what's left of it.
Not long after I posted news last week of the closure of the vintage Arby’s in Cudahy, Wisconsin, the pictures began to show up on social media, and in my inbox.
The iconic 10-gallon hat that had stood proudly on Packard Avenue since 1971 had been trashed, sliced up, and tossed in a Dumpster awaiting the scrapyard. The photos were all over Facebook. So much for hoping this roadside icon might live to shine another day.
Well, they say a picture is worth 1,000 words, but what they don’t say is that you need to be careful what those 1,000 words are telling you, because they might just be wrong.
In this case, they were dead wrong. Though nobody can be blamed for assuming the sign was doomed, there was actually a plan afoot to save it.
Another inbox was blowing up, much more so than mine, I can assure you. That inbox belonged to Joseph Rieland of West Allis, Wisconsin. You might not know Joe, but if you care about vintage signage, especially of the otherwise doomed variety, Joe is your man.
Among those reaching out to Joe was noted Milwaukee preservationist Adam Levin. A plan was hatched on the spot and operation Save the Hat was activated.
Not just anyone can save a gigantic Arby’s hat at the drop of a hat, but Joe has the equipment, the skills, the storage space, and most importantly, the love and respect for vintage Americana.
“I just want this stuff to be saved and I want the chance to be able to work on it,” he said. And in the unlikely event he can’t save it, he’ll find somebody else who can.
I had a long chat with Joe Sunday night, and he sent along photos of the Arby’s hat. It’s no longer complete, alas, as Dumpster divers helped themselves to parts of it. And that’s not to assign blame – if I had come upon this sad scene, I would have wanted to rescue part of the sign, too.
That said, if you are one of those impromptu preservationists, please reach out to Joe to reunite the parts with the whole!
But should those pieces of the puzzle never turn up, Joe is not despairing, nor should anybody else. Joe actually has a contact who worked at Peskin Signs, the Youngstown, Ohio, firm that built the original 10-gallon hats for Arby’s.
With a little creative surgery, welding hood securely in place, this sign might one day be good as new, or it may well become something entirely new and special, that honors the sign’s history.
Indeed, the sorry state of the sign plays to Rieland’s strengths – he told me he loves to “take old ratty signs and restore them,” bringing them back to life. He’s been told he makes light dance.
“Seeing it blink and seeing it light up again, it’s rewarding,” Joe told me.
That’s a special skill. His rescues include a vintage Coca-Cola sign that he believes is one of a kind, and a 60-foot sign from Racine, for Bob Weber’s Auto Mart. If you’re a local, you know it, and you should be relieved it's in Joe’s hands, too.
He works on the signs at his business, Redefined & Co., where he makes reclaimed furniture from the detritus of our “throwaway” culture and rehabilitates roadside America along the way. He especially loves to bring arrows back to life.
Joe is a rescuer of more than signs. This is actually not his day job.
He makes his living saving lives, human lives. He recovers organs from the recently deceased and gets them safely to their next destination, where another person who is hanging on to life awaits a transplant.
Joe Rieland is in the saving business, all right, and aren’t we lucky he is?
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