Florence Y'all Water Tower


Google Street View

The Florence Y'all Water Tower is large water tower in the city of Florence, Kentucky, USA.

The strange name "Y'all" has a curious history. The tower was originally painted with the large letters - "FLORENCE MALL" to advertise the nearby mall. This raised the issue of legality of using city property to advertise a private business and also violated the state laws for size of advertising on the highways.

To overcome these issue the then (1974) mayor of the town, came out with an inexpensive and easy solution of changing the "M" to a "Y" with an apostrophe.

The tower with the curious name has now become an icon of the city.

More information: Wikipedia

Update:
For all those who are wondering about the meaning of Y'all I am reproducing below part of the comments received from  Diane9247, who is  an active member and Moderator in Google Earth Community.
.... it's a contraction of "you all" and used almost exclusively in the southern states of the US. An example of its use is in a greeting, such as "Hey, y'all!" and a reflection of the extra -friendly nature of southerners. By contrast, the slightly more formal northerners would say "Hi, everyone."
Thank you Diane for this info.

1 comment:

Diane said...

I wonder...do you know what "y'all" means? Maybe you do, but here it is: it's a contraction of "you all" and used almost exclusively in the southern states of the US. An example of its use is in a greeting, such as "Hey, y'all!" and a reflection of the extra-friendly nature of southerners. By contrast, the slightly more formal northerners would say "Hi, everyone." :)

Greetings from Diane9247!

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