MCAR is the kingpin of historical marker maintenance in Pennsylvania.

In fact, MCAR is the only social service agency tackling the 1,800-marker job for the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

MCAR provides housing and training and employment services for mentally retarded citizens. Four years ago, Pennsylvania Industries for the Blind and Handicapped, Harrisburg, helped Hermitage-based MCAR land the state contract.

At the time, said MCAR production manager Mark Russell, the program "seemed like a perfect complement to our furniture refinishing project."

The MCAR marker maintenance shop has touched up about 200 markers a year. At that rate, each marker in the state would get touched up about once a decade, he said.

Russell said MCAR plans to touch up 220 markers in the fiscal year which begins July 1. "The commission sends us a list of what they want done during the fiscal year, and we get it done," Russell said.

Russell said the job includes traveling to each marker site, uprooting the marker and hauling it back to the shop. At the shop, Russell said, the cast aluminum markers are sandblasted, reprimed and repainted. The markers are sprayed "Pennsylvania blue," and the letters are hand-painted gold.

Sometimes the job also calls for welding, drilling, metal-bending and dent-tapping. After the signs are touched up, MCAR returns and re-plants the markers.

"They (the clients) enjoy it and take quite a bit of pride in their work," Russell said. Between three and six MCAR clients work in the shop at a time, Russell added. About 70 markers were in the shop Wednesday.

Almost 90 years ago, the state Senate approved funding for a program commemorating the people, places and events of the state’s history with markers, Russell said. Each of the state’s 67 county courthouses has a marker, Russell added, but MCAR has not yet touched up the one at the Mercer County Courthouse or any other markers in the county.

The original markers were made of cast bronze; since 1946, cast aluminum has been the marker material.