Girl Scouts’ mural brightens downtown

Vancouver Sign Company workers hang panels Thursday for a new 112-foot-long “Celebrate Vancouver” mural on the south side of the Columbia Street railroad overpass near the Red Lion Hotel Vancouver at the Quay. Painted by Girl Scout Troop 4765, the 4-by-8-foot panels depict scenes at Frenchman’s Bar, Esther Short Park, the riverfront looking east toward Mount Hood, Fort Vancouver and Mount St. Helens. Recycling artist Tim Foertsch created fish with recycled metals on two of the panels. The mural was a joint project by the Girl Scouts and the Clark County Mural Society. It replaces a weathered mural of squiggly blue lines painted in 1993 by Lewis and Clark High School students as a community project to discourage graffiti.