The family of one of the founders of the Blue Bird Cab Co. say they want to save the taxi company’s sign on Route 1 in Hyattsville’s Arts District.

Laura Lower, whose grandfather Arabia Pasha “AP” Cayton was one of the three founders of Blue Bird in 1949, said that she and other relatives are seeking to get in touch with the current property owners to find a way to salvage the sign.

“The sign is sentimental because my grandfather worked so hard to build the business and when he died, we couldn’t run it anymore,” she told the Hyattsville Wire in an email. “Preserving the sign in some way would mean lot and if it must be torn down we would like to keep it in the family.”

The property is currently owned by Urban Investment Partners, which hopes to build a large apartment and retail complex on the site.

In recent years, Route 1 communities have found a way to preserve some of the markers of the area’s history, including the saucer at the Hyattsville public library, the Lustine Center auto showroom in the Arts District, the old ‘liquor, beer, wine’ sign at the new Vigilante in College Park and the most recently, the B&J Auto Supply arrow sign in Brentwood.

Like those landmarks, the Blue Bird Cab Co. sign is a reminder of the Route 1 corridor’s not-so-distant past and a way to keep the area from losing its personality as new houses, apartments and shops crop up.

But for Lower, who now lives in Gambrills, it’s also just a more personal reminder.

“I have memories of visiting the office as a child,” she told the Wire. “Listening to the dispatch. Everyone smoked cigarettes, which was my least favorite experience. The old vending machines. My grandfather and his partners hosted the annual crab feast for all of the employees and their families.”

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