The highly contentious “Uncle Sam billboard” off Interstate 5 in Lewis County has a new owner: The Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation.
And yes, the tribe intends to take down the right-wing messages that have lingered on the 40-foot-by-13-foot sign for years.
The tribe closed on the 3.5-acre property hosting the billboard for $2.5 million in cash Friday morning, said Chehalis RE/MAX real estate associate Israel Jimenez who listed the site for sale on March 3. The property went up for sale when the owner’s family decided to reposition their assets, Jimenez told The Times in March.
The property, though small, has historical significance, said Jeff Warnke, the Chehalis Tribe’s director of government and public relations.
The sale presented an opportunity for economic development right next to I-5 with good signage, but it’s also an opportunity to buy back tribal land the Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation ceded more than 150 years ago, Warnke said.
The Upper Chehalis Tribes did not sign treaties with the United States. But in the mid-19th century, many white American settlers filed claims to the land in the Chehalis River valley and its tributaries, according to HistoryLink.
As it reclaims the land, the tribe doesn’t have a “serious” idea about the sign’s future, whether it will post its own messaging or not, Warnke said.
But the current messages are coming down.
For the past few years, the billboard has been stuck on the same two lines. “How many Americans will we leave behind in Ukraine?” it reads for drivers traveling southbound and “No one died in WW2 so you could show papers to buy food!” for those going north.
The Uncle Sam billboard has stood in various spots along I-5 in the Chehalis area since the 1960s, erected by turkey and cattle farmer Al Hamilton and his wife. It’s been detested by some and celebrated by others as a monument to free speech, whether people agree with its messaging or not.
Previous messages have echoed birtherism conspiracies about former President Barack Obama, decried COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and hounded various politicians.
Hamilton once told The Oregonian his favorite message was, “Let’s keep the Canal and give them Kissinger,” a reference to the treaty ceding control of the Panama Canal. He said many of the billboard displays came from the John Birch Society, a right-wing anti-communist political advocacy group known for promoting conspiracy theories.
Across its nearly 60-year lifetime, the Uncle Sam Billboard survived many threats to its future.
Hamilton successfully defended the billboard against a lawsuit that argued his billboard violated a state law by displaying “political and religion commentary.”
The billboard survived Hamilton selling his farm in 1995 and dying in 2004. It even survived a petition to take down the sign that gathered more than 80,000 signatures in 2020 and an arsonist who failed to burn it down.
Ever since Jimenez listed the property abutting I-5 — his contact information posted on a sign beneath the billboard — he’s gotten dozens of calls from interested buyers and curious community members who want to know what’s going to happen to the sign’s historically provocative messaging.
People who want to see the sign’s legacy of right-wing zingers preserved and those who want to see it turn over a new leaf have both called Jimenez, he said. He could only tell them that he doesn’t know what the sign’s future holds.
“It was the big talk of the town,” he said.
Warnke said the tribe did not consider the billboard when it decided to buy the 3.5-acre property.
The sale also includes a commercial building and office on the triangular lot. The tribe doesn’t yet have plans for what it will do with the property, Warnke said.
Nevertheless, Warnke’s family has lived in the Chehalis area for two generations, and he remembers riding past the billboard messages since he was a kid.
“Some of it’s funny. Some of it ain’t,” he said.
The tribe has “had a good time thinking of crazy stuff we could put up there,” Warnke said, but they haven’t landed on anything concrete.
One musing, Warnke said, was a message informing people that the property is tribal land.
