Henry Harrison Mayes (February 8, 1898 – March 7, 1986) was an American evangelist and coal miner from Middlesboro, Kentucky. He planted thousands of religious signs and concrete markers alongside American highways and near airports. The main message of the crosses and sometimes heart-shaped markers were "Prepare to Meet God" and "Jesus is Coming Soon", sometimes engraved with instructions for their final destinations on other continents or planets. His work has been considered a type of folk-religion[1] and he referred to himself as "God's Advertiser".[2]
Mayes was born on February 8, 1898, in Fork Ridge, Claiborne County, Tennessee.[3]
Together with his wife, Lilly, Mayes started his self-funded, life-time mission,[4] following his recovery from an accident in the coal mines in his early twenties.
While most of Mayes' early signs, made from wood, cardboard or oil cloth, have disappeared, his main body of work, including tools and other artifacts, is preserved in The People's Building at the Museum of Appalachia. Around 25 objects (including concrete markers and barn signs) can still be found alongside old highways or have been relocated to churches or on private property. He installed a 120-foot long, lighted cross[5] on a steep hill visible from Cumberland Avenue, Middlesboro's main street.[6] A corrugated metal sign reading "GET RIGHT WITH GOD" was included in the 2016 Southern Accent exhibition at the Nasher Museum of Art.[7]
Mayes' story has been told in Foxfire magazine, in the self-published book A Coal Miner's Simple Message by his daughter-in-law Catherine Mayes[5] and in numerous newspaper articles and magazines.[8]
^Foxfire Fund, I.; Wigginton, E. (2010). Foxfire 9. Foxfire Series (in French). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 328. ISBN 978-0-307-75737-1. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
^Charles Reagan Wilson, J.Y. With signs following. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p. 20. ISBN 978-1-61703-539-5. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
^Gibson, Jadon (March 20, 2022). "Harrison Mayes - An ordinary man with extraordinary faith". Claiborne Progress.
^Martha Carver, C.S.; Stager, C.; Carver, M. (2006). Looking Beyond the Highway: Dixie Roads and Culture. University of Tennessee Press. p. 202. ISBN 978-1-57233-467-0. Retrieved May 27, 2022.
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