West of Seligman, Arizona State Route 66 carries replica Burma-Shave signs: a short rhyme split across a run of small boards spaced along the shoulder, the punch line landing on the last board before the brand name. Ten sets, five facing each direction, run for about fifteen miles beginning roughly a mile and a half west of Seligman, between mileposts 138 and 139. Replica sets stood beside the road by the early 2010s, and Roadside America credits the Arizona Department of Transportation with putting up the current ones in 2021 to slow drivers down. The originals advertised a brushless shaving cream that Burma-Vita of Minneapolis introduced in 1925, and the first series went up that fall along US 65 south of Minneapolis.
Allan and Clinton Odell wrote most of the early jingles themselves; later the company ran contests with cash prizes for new ones, and about 600 different verses are known, spread over more than 6,000 sets of signs. A 1930 verse warned that shaving brushes would soon be seen on the shelf in some museum. The campaign ended in 1963, when the company was sold to Philip Morris and the signs were discontinued on the advice of counsel.
Burma-Shave itself never placed signs on this stretch during its original campaigns. Wikipedia records re-creations along the state highway all the way from Ash Fork to Kingman.
Getting there
35.3312, -112.9000
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
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