June 26, 2005

What the heck is Milam?

milam.jpg

Take Milam for pure blood
Guaranteed [what?]

Mosby and Venable Streets

I've been googling around and I can't turn up anything on this Milam stuff. I've found a lot of streets called Milam, a county called Milam, people called Milam, people called Milam who have pictures of their tombstones posted (I've just discovered that there are people who make image catalogs of entire cemeteries). Nothing about pure blood, although there are some Milams involved in hematological research. It's obviously some kind of odd patent medicine that, judging by the lack of Googits, didn't make much of an impression except on this wall.

Anyway, isn't this a great ghost sign? I've been wanting to photograph it for a while, but hadn't gotten to it. This weekend we got stuck at this intersection when a funeral cortege was passing through on Venable and, smack in the middle of the street actually being the optimal location, I was able to take several shots from the comfort of my car.

But what is Milam?

170 words | June 26, 2005 09:38 PM | Ghost signs
Comments

I did a little Lexis-Nexis searching (business and medical news), but I can't seem to find it there, either. Turns out to be a more common surname than I thought, though.

Posted by: Jonathan Dresner at June 28, 2005 01:15 AM

Isn't it weird? I thought the Google image search would turn up another sign of it, but there's just nothing.

Posted by: Nee-chama at June 28, 2005 08:33 PM

This is really random, but I wanted to reply on an earlier post of June 26, 2005.
I just passed it by really accidentally, and I thought it was an interesting post. So I rushed thru google for about 5 or 10 minutes, and here is what I found:
Milam is a distraction of Mileham which is a habitant of Myln Norfolk. Now Norfolk is where it all ends up. According to the encyclopedia, Norfolk is one of the first English, even European settlements. (1565, first collony is Spanish) Now as we could see on the first site I refered you to, the Milams are a Brittis/American patriotical family which explains the expression on the Photo: "For Pure Blood"
Well, the poll appears even more interresting than I first thought.
For me its pretty late here, to me, everything I wrote makes sence, if it doesnt to you, let me know...

Posted by: Frank at November 9, 2005 09:31 PM

Well, I still think that the Milam on the sign is a kind of tonic that people might have taken to "purify" their blood, like some people today take goldenseal or garlic capsules. It was probably manufactured by members of the Milam family. Given the information you found, I wouldn't be surprised at all if there were a Norfolk, England—Norfolk, Virginia connection.

Thanks!

Posted by: Nee-chama at November 9, 2005 09:38 PM