Berthoud’s Hand-painted Entrance Signs

Feb 26, 2025 | hand-painted highway signs

Berthoud’s hand-painted entrance signs reflect the charm of this small, semi-rural, agricultural town, located just south of Loveland, Colorado. Interestingly, its city limits are in both Larimer and Weld Counties. The town has been tucked away under the towering Rocky Mountains in the heart of Colorado’s farming country since 1860.

Currently, during Colorado’s on-going population boom, Berthoud has joined a growing list of small farming towns to offer an alternative lifestyle, instead of the bustling and busy front range cities of Denver, Longmont, Boulder and Fort Collins.

Vintage retro flair…

Because of the town’s growing popularity, it needed three entrance signs to steer potential residents and visitors to its location. So, Berthoud’s marketing team contacted Paxton Signs about our unique design and hand-painting abilities. (Hand-painted signs are somewhat of a rarity these days because of the advent of computerized sign-making.)

Accordingly, we went to work designing four different looks for Berthoud’s highway entrance signs. The design they loved was a takeoff of a vintage 1960’s Route 66 postcard, shown above. In addition, this retro-themed design fulfilled their requirement of incorporating Berthoud’s small town charm into its historical agricultural and rural atmosphere.

Size-wise, each of the three hand-painted highway signs measures 8’x8′. We constructed each one by using two 4’x8′, 1/8″ thick aluminum substrates placed together vertically to allow moisture to drain. Then, we hand-painted each sign separately, making it a unique work of art.

Watch the Berthoud sign installation coverage on 9NEWS, below: