Sherwin-Williams Paint Factory “Cover the Earth”
The Sherwin-Williams Company has a long history. Founded in Cleveland, Ohio. in 1866 by Henry A. Sherwin and Edward T. Williams, the company had plants in several states and foreign countries by the 1920s. The Emeryville branch, built in 1919, was originally a distribution warehouse located next to the Southern Pacific railroad tracks. The Emeryville operation expanded over the years into a complex of warehouses and manufacturing plants. In the 1920s, the Sherwin-Williams complex produced paints, colors. varnishes, sprays, and insecticides.
The plant is perhaps best remembered for its huge electric Sign, one of the largest west of Chicago, which ran along the roofline of the three-story building located at the comer of Sherwin Avenue and Horton Street. The sign was built by the Electrical Products Corporation in 1939. the year the fair opened on Treasure Island. Its dimensions stagger the imagination. At the north end was the Sherwin-Williams trademark. a tipping paint can pouring neon “paint” over a globe. Across the globe. the words “Cover the Earth” flashed on and off. The sign measured 320 feet in length-longer than a football field.
The steel structure supporting the sign weighed 30 tons. and its letters were constructed of 15,000 square feet of sheet metal. Illumination was provided by one mile of neon tubing powered by 100 transformers. Visible from as far away as Treasure Island. the sign also attracted the attention of the sixty thousand motorists who passed it every day on the East Shore Highway.
Michael Murphy, a painter who lived in a converted warehouse next to Sherwin-Williams, recalls: “The sign was on top of this three-story brick factory building and towered another three stories over the roof line. At the north end was the world-this huge metal cartoon of a globe with neon paint being poured over it forever. It had the feel of a 1930s icon. It was due west from my studio and we saw every sunset strained through it. The sign imparted a unique sense of place to the block. It was like living at the rainbows end.”
In 1974 Sherwin-Williams changed its trademark. and the firm decided to remove the Sign. Emeryville’s most famous landmark, having been in existence for almost 40 years, was dismantled in July 1977, leaving a huge hole in the skyline. The San Francisco Chronicle covered the story (July 29. 1977) under the headline “Death of a Symbol.” Today. shorn of its roof sign. the Sherwin-Williams Paint Co. plant still stands at the original location and is still in operation.
This story originally published in 1996 for the Emeryville Centennial Celebration and compiled into the ‘Early Emeryville Remembered’ historical essays book.
