Old-timey spider-man signs

Keith Powell’s recent book Forgotten Moyie included a terrific photo showing a long line of now-long-lost buildings on Moyie’s Victoria Street (now Highway 3).

There’s also something odd: a dummy clings to the roof of R.A. Smith’s shoemaker shop. A sign on its back reads: “Climbing for/R.A. Smith’s/Hand made/Boots and/Shoes.”

(Columbia Basin Institute of Regional History/Fort Steele Heritage Town Archives 2560.0005)

Then I noticed something similar on a postcard of Front Street in Revelstoke’s Lower Town. A dummy clings to the roof of H.B. Stonex’s machinist shop with a sign on its back, although I can’t read what it says. The dummy is in almost the exact same position as the one in Moyie.

(Greg Nesteroff collection)

I found a third example in an unusual view of Nelson’s Uphill neighbourhood, taken between 1906 and 1908, and looking northeast down the alley between Victoria and Silica streets. This time the sign is on a shed and says “Climbing for Nelson Hardware Co.’s Fishing Tackle.” The dummy is in the same pose.

A note on this photo indicates it came from the Trail Museum and the photographer’s name was Vannucchi. (Nelson Museum E387)

There are several other signs as well, including one for Shiloh’s Consumption Cure, another for what looks like the English Stationery Co., and a third for a brand of tea that I can’t quite make out. Was someone collecting these signs? Or what accounts for their concentration in an alley? 

What are we to make of all this?

Three dummies in three towns put up around the same time by three unrelated businesses. I’ll tentatively conclude that this was a common advertising gimmick around the turn of the 20th century.

But was it unique to this part of BC? Did a sign shop make these dummies? Or did the businesses all read the same trade publication story titled “Build your own roof-clinging dummy and profit”? I have no idea. And I don’t know how to go about finding out either, partly because I don’t know what to call signs like this.

For now, I’m going with “spider-man signs.” I’d be interested if you can find any other images depicting them or have any other theories about them.  

The only possibly related thing I’ve found was in the Bergen (New Jersey) Evening Record of Nov. 25, 1939: “A dummy clinging perilously to a second story window ledge on a Main street building, pleading by sign to be taken to the Ridgefield Park Elks dance tonight, is symbolic of the pre-dance spirit of three celebrations scheduled tonight …”

Just coincidence, or a vestige of a forgotten tradition of spider-man signs?

Updated on Feb. 7, 2026 to add the Nelson sign.