"THE Pig Sign" Dates Back 60+ Years at Mahomet Family Farm
Have you ever driven down Route 47 and wondered what “THE Pig Sign” is? Technically located in Seymour at County Road 300E and County Road 1900N, the green wooden sign with a white pig – now sporting bright pink hooves – has nonetheless become a bit of a Mahomet icon.
Barbara Herriott shared the pig sign’s origin story with us.
My husband, Bill Herriott, raised purebred Landrace hogs. They are originally from Denmark and have an extra rib, so more bacon. He showed at fairs and conventions around the country and even in Canada. He sold breeding stock to other breeders around the country and sold breeding stock overseas.
In order for other Landrace breeders around the state and country to better find him, he had a sign made with a picture of the Landrace pig and his name on the sign; that was back in the early sixties, I believe. The original sign featured a pig with larger droopier ears and a longer body.
Little did my husband know, the sign would be so well-known years later! Once, when the sign had been vandalized, my husband took it down to repair it, and while it was down, a semi stopped at our home, asking where he could find a pig sign, as he was supposed to turn there!
Later, there was even a lady from the C-U area who wrote a book titled “Turn Left at the Pig Sign,” referencing directions from a friend on how to drive to her house in the country. Over the years, many neighbors in the subdivision west of us and other neighbors have referred to the pig sign when giving directions. Thus, our claim to fame!
Herriott said that when her husband stopped raising hogs in the nineties, neighbors offered to maintain the sign if her family would keep it up. “So it stands,” she said, “Much different from the original, but still ‘The Pig Sign.’”
