In 1913, at the urging of magazine editor Edward W. Bok, the Merion Civic Association decided to replace the hodgepodge of wooden street markers on every Merion corner with cast-iron road signs "of distinctive design."
Two years later, 93 of the scrolled green-and-gold signs were in place. Four years after that, they became the model for landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. as he planned communities across the nation.
Elegant signs, he wrote, "will add to the attractive character of the streets and, at the same time, give visible evidence of civic activity. . . . Witness the example of Merion."
Now, almost 100 years later, the signs that Olmsted so admired may have to yield to baby boomers' poor eyesight.
The Federal Highway Administration has issued regulations requiring bigger, more-readable road-name signs by 2018. Lower Merion Township, wary of budget busters, opposes the change based on cost and the right to preserve its historic landscape.
"The loss of these signs, to me, would be an epic tragedy," wrote Wynnewood resident Mike Weilbacher in a column on the Main Line Media News website. "Let's pray the tragedy is avoidable, but only if the community and its elected representatives and staff work together."
Communities including West Chester and New Hope are also grappling with the feds' demand. Their signs aren't historic, but replacing them would sap money and manpower they say they can't afford. Other municipalities across the country are weighing in with concerns of their own.
Some are taking the position that the mandate is symptomatic of too much government.
"It is overreaching, these federal government regulations," groused Lower Merion Township Commissioner V. Scott Zelov. "It's a solution in search of a problem. There's no need for these regulations."
Gerald Francis, president of the Lower Merion Historical Society, spotted the regulations when they surfaced last year in news reports. He and preservation architect Christian Busch of Ardmore formed an alliance of local preservation groups to lobby for a waiver.
When the highway administration took the unusual step of offering a fresh public-comment period, Lower Merion Public Works Director Donald W. Cannon acted as the cudgel.
He argued that the rules were "unreasonable" in difficult economic times, and that replacing the historic signs with replicas that came up to code would cost $1.5 million. Even installing standard green-and-white street signs would cost nearly $1 million - money the township says it can't spare.
"Basically, there was an unfunded mandate to take down the old ones and put up the new ones that were inferior," Francis said. "We were going: Why?"
Aware of growing public angst, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement late last year that the regulations were not timely and should be revisited.
"To set things right," he said, "the first step is to reopen public comment and give people a chance to weigh in. There have got to be better ways to improve safety without piling costs onto the American people."
But no action to rescind the mandate has been taken while the comments are being reviewed, and that has meant no reprieve for Lower Merion.
When the highway administration updated standards for road and highway signs in 2009, it set firm deadlines; failure to comply could jeopardize federal dollars flowing through the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for local projects.
By January 2015, the feds warned, municipalities must replace all regulatory and warning highway signs that fell below a certain level of reflectivity.
By January 2018, municipalities must replace, in smaller neighborhoods, overhead and street-name signs that weren't reflective enough.
An added recommendation said letter height should be six inches by 2018. If signs wore out and needed replacement after 2018, the agency suggested a mix of lowercase and capital letters.
The bigger, brighter signs are intended to give older drivers with fading vision more time to react to traffic condition, especially on darker, rural roads.
"At the end of the day," said Doug Hecox, a spokesman for the highway administration, "our primary goal is safety."
But Zelov, the township commissioner, said he doubted that the historic street signs in Lower Merion put drivers at risk.
"Emergency responders have never had difficulty finding locations in Lower Merion, and with the technology in their vehicles today," he said, "they don't rely on street signs."
Further, Lower Merion police have identified no car crashes that could be linked to the signs, Zelov said.
Hecox said studies backed up his agency's assertions. But he also said Lower Merion's waiver request was "something I'm confident that could be considered."
Over the years, some of the cast-iron signs have been replaced by aluminum replicas in a dog-bone shape, according to Busch, the preservation architect. Some have been there so long that trees have grown around them.
The signs still have the distinctive gold letters on a green background, a finial on top, and the green post with a fancy flared base.
The township, as a whole, though, has a mix of sign styles. An inventory needs to be done, and ultimately enough political will mustered to resist the replacement edict, Busch said.
"It's not like George Washington slept here," he said, "but it's this fascinating history that made our towns what they are, and what it still is today.
"To lose all of these? How sad is that?"