Then and Now: Luke and Chuck Williams’ American Sign and Indicator

Luke and Chuck Williams grew up working in their family’s sign business. The brothers returned from World War II with the idea for their own venture.

In 1950, the brothers devised an electronic sign that flashed the time and temperature. Their first sign went up on the Spokane and Eastern branch of Seattle First National Bank at Howard and Riverside in 1953.

Over the next four decades, time and temp signs made by American Sign and Indicator became a common sight on banks everywhere. The company also built many scoreboards for ballparks and stadiums around the country. The company defended many patent challenges through the 1960s and ’70s.

The company claimed 7,000 signs in operation in 1977. By 1979, the company had 750 employees and more than $40 million in annual sales. The Williams brothers sold their business in 1983 to a leasing company but stayed with the company. In a flurry of corporate sales and takeovers, the company that once grew like wildfire was slowly reduced to a flicker of its former glory after years under threat of another patent lawsuit from a Swiss firm. The company headquarters was moved from Spokane in 1990.

Chuck died in 1993. Luke Williams, a city councilman and a promoter of Expo ’74, declared bankruptcy in 1994 to protect his own assets. Even as the lawsuits bogged down AS&I, he started American Electronic Sign and later sold that to 3M. The Seattle First National Bank building, and the original AS&I sign, came down in 1980 to make way for the 20-story SeaFirst tower, now the Bank of America Financial Center.

Luke Williams continued to try to resurrect the company with new technologies. He died in 2004 at the age of 80. A former company salesman commented after Luke Williams’ death: “I can honestly say that I have yet to work for any other individual or company that treats their people as openly and honestly as Luke Williams did.”