Pivoting off Central and Van Buren: Navigating the Valley by Denny Gleason’s Paint Can Lids
Most people would be happy to properly organize their garage or even a closet or two. Not Dennis "Denny" Gleason. The talented ragtime pianist, who couldn't read a note of music, had a grander goal: starting in the mid-1930s, he organized Valley roadways, one paint can lid at a time.
With "Why Get Lost?" as his official motto, Gleason dedicated his life to efficiently guiding motorists around Maricopa County in the pre-GPS era. Frustrated by inconsistent street signage, Gleason created a standardized system for measuring a person's distance from Central Avenue and Van Buren Street in Downtown Phoenix.
For instance, Camelback Road and 44th Street became 4N, 5E, and Dobbins Road and 27th Avenue became 6S, 2.5W. The two intersections were 17.5 miles apart (4N + 6S = 10 miles; 5E + 2.5W = 7.5 miles).
Gleason promoted his plan by publishing a handbook and by obsessively posting unauthorized, homemade street signs made from 5-gallon metal paint-can lids on traffic poles near intersections. "At one point, you could see Denny's signs on almost every power pole around," says Ed Chilleen, owner of the now-closed Crazy Ed's Satisfied Frog Restaurant in Cave Creek. "Denny was one of the last great characters in Phoenix."
The paint-can-lid-prophet discovered his life's calling after returning from World War I in 1919. Gleason joined his brothers at Gleason Bros., a men’s clothing store formerly known as Valley Clothing Co., at 5 W. Washington St. in Downtown Phoenix.
His role was to drive around Maricopa County, collecting payments from customers. At the time, street signs were scarce, many roads in the Valley had multiple names, and some streets were known by their Salt River Project lateral numbers. Looking for a more efficient way to navigate the Valley, in 1935, he published a 120-page pocketbook, Denny Gleason's Numerical System Street, Road, and Rural Route Guide.
Gleason later secured a job as a road striper and sign painter for the Maricopa County Highway Department, which gave him access to a nearly endless supply of paint can lids. He marked location coordinates on the lids and attached them to utility poles with baling wire. Depending on one's familiarity with Gleason's system, the paint lids could be helpful navigation tools or appear as mysterious, and possibly unsightly, hieroglyphics.
Over the years, Gleason pushed for official approval of his sign system. "Why do you think the state spends money every year on mileposts?" Gleason told The Arizona Republic in 1957. "They know it's the simplest way to pinpoint any spot along the highways." Eventually, in the late 1960s, Maricopa County agreed to pay him $5 per posted sign, but soon canceled the contract.
In the early 1970s, resigned to the fact that the county would never officially adopt his coordinate system, Gleason dedicated his time to playing keyboard at shopping centers to raise funds for the St. Vincent de Paul Society. He died in 1976 at age 81.
Although it's been over 40 years since the family last saw one of his signs along a road in the Valley, there might still be a few survivors. "Denny put them up even in the most remote locations in Maricopa County. There are probably a few out there still slowly gathering rust," says Larry Gleason, his nephew.
Douglas C. Towne is the editor of Arizona Contractor & Community magazine, www.arizcc.com