Hobo symbols

Hobo signs were a system of symbols, marked on fences, trees, houses, etc. to give fellow “Knights of the Road” help and warnings.

These are the marks that told travelers whether a town or house was friend or foe.

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Let's have a look inside the rooms of 38 U.S. hotels and motels from the late fifties through the seventies.

In the 1930s, hobos used signs to communicate on the situations of people and places.

The Hobo Code

Hobo Code Icon Set designed by Nathan Dillaha. Connect with them on Dribbble; the global community for designers and creative professionals.

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Many of us now use the word hobo to refer to any homeless individual, but back in the America of the late 19th and early 20th century, to be a hobo meant something more.

Right behind the Sounds True office backyard, just a hop over tangled barbed wire, run these local railroad tracks: The other day I was watching television’s most underrated exploration of the Jungian “shadow principle”—Mad Men—and it reminded me of these tracks. In the episode called “The Hobo Code,” we get a glimpse into the protagonist […]

Chanta Darra Chuong here's the legend for drifter's code. Fun fact: safe camp (the symbol Circa and Take it Back! both claim) is derived from this.

Traveling from city to city, hobos developed a visual code to help keep each other safe, often marking buildings with chalk or coal. Hobo ...

The Internet has needed a good directory of old railyard hobo signs - the signs that hoboes used to chalk onto walls and trains to communica...

Have You Seen These Chalk Symbols On The Streets Of London?