Collection: Rock City Birdhouses

For decades Rock City Gardens’ legacy of barn, billboard and birdhouse advertising has directed motorists up Lookout Mountain.  In 1936, Garnet Carter gave Clark Byers a truck, some paint and a mission.  Paint SEE ROCK CITY on every barn he could find.  These black and white signs appeared as far north as Michigan and as far west as Texas. Byers built a miniature barn intending to sell it as a mailbox, but when the U.S. Postal Service wouldn’t allow this, he took his prototype, punched holes in it, and declared it to be a birdhouse instead.  The familiar red, black, and white SEE ROCK CITY birdhouses were soon found on the lawns of motels, in front of service stations, and in other areas too small for a barn to squeeze into.