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Billboards first showed up in the U.S. in the 1860s and proliferated over the next decades, with standardized sizes taking root in the early 1900s. This 1927 billboard above Martin Zinkan grocery at 1205 Kentucky Ave. advertises used cars at Capitol Overland Co. at Capitol Avenue and Michigan Street (a building that remains). General Outdoor Advertising Co. of Indianapolis—which had formed two years earlier with the merger of The Fulton Group and the Cusack Co.—marketed the billboard. Next door is the Aaron A. Coffman restaurant and pool room. The photo is courtesy of the Indiana Historical Society and comes from the Naegele Advertising Photographs collection. More images are available atimages.indianahistory.org. Sources: Indiana Historical Society, Outdoor Advertising Association of America
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