Department of Redundant Plaques
Marrow's Forge, Pennsylvania · Government · est. 1966
A three-room borough office responsible for the upkeep of historical markers across four counties, best known for its collection of plaques that commemorate other plaques. Under a 1966 procedural rule, any relocated marker must be memorialized at its former site — a requirement the office has followed to its logical conclusion for six decades.
History
Commonwealth Marker Maintenance District No. 6 was established in 1966 with an annual appropriation of $11,300 to clean, repair, and reseat historical markers in a four-county area. Its charter, drafted by the Joint Subcommittee on Marker Placement, included Rule 14(c): 'Where a marker is removed or relocated, a durable notice shall record its former placement.' The rule's author is not recorded, and the subcommittee's surviving members have each attributed it to one of the others.
The first recursive installation occurred in 1968, when a bronze marker on Forge Road was moved forty feet to accommodate a road-widening project and a cast plaque was set at the original location, reading in part FORMER SITE OF A MARKER, NOW 40 FEET WEST. In 1974 a drainage improvement required moving the notice plaque itself, which under Rule 14(c) required a second notice. District staff refer to these successive plaques as 'generations,' a term that appears in official correspondence without comment from 1981 onward.
The district's principal setback was a funding lapse lasting from 1979 to 1985, during which sixty-one plaques awaiting reinstallation were stored in the borough garage of foreman Emil Kasarda. When funding resumed, the plaques were reinstalled over two summers, and the garage received a plaque acknowledging its service. Following the garage's demolition in 1998, that plaque was relocated to the office lobby, accompanied — as required — by a plaque at the former garage site noting the plaque's removal.
Today the district maintains 212 conventional markers and 34 plaques commemorating plaques, including one third-generation example on Forge Road believed to be the deepest such lineage in the mid-Atlantic. A self-guided walking tour of 0.6 miles connects eleven of them. The office building itself bears a plaque noting that it formerly housed the offices of Marker Maintenance District No. 4, whose own plaques are now maintained by District No. 6 under a reciprocity agreement no one has read recently.
“You move a thing, you say where it was. That's not bureaucracy. That's manners.”
Local Legends
Residents insist a fourth-generation plaque exists somewhere in the district. Staff deny this 'at this time,' a phrasing residents find significant.
Some maintain that Rule 14(c) was originally a typographical error for Rule 14(b), a clause concerning paint. Page 14 of the original bound charter is missing; its absence is noted, in the bound volume, on a small plaque.
Longtime residents claim the office doorbell is the original bell from the 1966 dedication ceremony. The district's official position is that it is a doorbell.
The Controversy
A 1993 state audit questioned whether commemorating plaques constituted 'marker maintenance' within the meaning of the appropriation. The district responded with a nine-page memorandum arguing that a plaque concerning a plaque is definitionally concerned with a marker, and is therefore maintained, not created. The audit was closed with the finding 'technically responsive,' a phrase the district had cast in bronze before the finding was final.
Visitor Reviews
The plaques are well kept. Some are about other plaques, which the pamphlet explains twice, once near the beginning and once near the end. The walk is flat.
I read the garage plaque's full lineage out loud, alone, in light rain. Somewhere around the second generation it stopped being funny to me and became something else. I have been back once already.
Mainly reviewing the diner across Forge Road, which does a scrapple platter until 11 and lets you keep the pot of coffee at the table. You can see three of the plaques from the corner booth.
The casting quality on the 1968 original is honestly superb for a municipal job. Crisp letterforms, even patina. Whoever District 6 used, they don't make them like that now. The plaque about it is also fine.
Gift Shop
Currently in stock
- Miniature plaque kit (engraving not included)ask at desk
- Rubbing paper and wax crayon set (Generation Three excluded)ask at desk
- Fold-out pamphlet: 'The Lineage of Marker 12'ask at desk
- Commemorative polishing clothask at desk
- 'ASK ME ABOUT GENERATION THREE' buttonask at desk
- Postcard: the Forge Road plaque and its plaque, photographed togetherask at desk