Hastings Gazette, August 23, 1962

A reminder of the days when a horse could have been picked up for speeding on the streets of Hastings, is this old sign which Pete Werth displays in his antique-repair shop. Pete isn’t sure just when this particular sign, restricting speed to 8 miles per hour, was in use, but he thinks it may have been between 1922 and 1924, when Jim Smith was mayor of Hastings. “He started quite a crack-down on speeding,” Pete recalls. According to Pete, the “8 MPH” signs at one time were posted on Vermillion street south across the river from the King Midas Mill; at 10 and Tyler: and at 55 and Pine. This particular sign is hand-made, of one-eighth inch sheet metal, with the lettering punched and drilled out.