The Milk Can, Louisquisset Turnpike, Route 146, Saylesville, Kent County, RI

Significance: The Milk Can is significant for its exemplification of aspects of early twentieth-century commercial and transportation history. It is a characteristic example of a distinctive and fast-disappearing phase of the first period of automobile-oriented commerce. The Milk Can represents the earliest period of snack food merchandising. Located on a major highway, it was designed to act as as "sign," an immediate, eye-catching attraction to auto travelers on the Louisquisset Pike. The heyday of such mimetic architecture was in the 1920s and 1930s, and examples are now rare. The Milk Can's flamboyant form is a good expression of the retailing imperatives of its decade. Unlike the highway-oriented chain fast-food outlets of today, whose proprietors can rely upon nationwide promotion and advertising to gain the recognition and attention of travelers, the Milk Can's owner, who built in an era of individual entrepreneurship, required a structure which could demand the motorist's notice, immediately focus his attention, and act as an advertisement for itself. The Milk Can is significant as a reminder of the early decades of auto travel when Americans took to the highway with a sense of excitement and newfound mobility, as a singular example of roadside vernacular architecture (literally a "sign of its time"), and for its ability to illustrate some important aspects of Lincoln's early twentieth century history.
Survey number: HABS RI-384
Building/structure dates: ca. 1930 Initial Construction