Photo via /r/Minnesota on Reddit
You may have noticed, on recent jaunts up Highway 23, that you've entered the city limits of Oglivie, population 388.
Ope.
East-central Minnesotans and astute passers-by noticed the misspelled signage last week, when the transposed letters of Ogilvie grabbed headlines and social media attention alike.
According to an email from Ogilvie mayor Mark Nilson, the spelling faux pas isn't the first one the city has dealt with.
"We are aware of it. However, it isn't a problem that the city is responsible for," Nilson explained via email. "As far as I know, MnDOT and the state census are the people in charge of these signs."
LeeAnn Goltz, who works in central region communications at the Minnesota Department of Transportation, shed some light on how the misspelled signs came to be — and news about a swift solution.
In an email, Goltz said MnDOT is currently replacing all of the population signs in District 3, where Ogilvie is located.
"District 3 Traffic Office designs the signs and then our State Sign Shop fabricates them based on the provided specifications," Goltz wrote in an email.
The Ogilvie population signs were replaced about two weeks ago, and Goltz said they slipped through MnDOT's usual quality control process.
"We have not yet confirmed where the actual error occurred, but we believe our district made the error when sending the specifications for sign fabrication," Goltz explained.
The erroneous signs were removed as of Wednesday, July 5, and new signs are in production and set to be put up by early next week.
Ogilvie residents have apparently taken the spelling slip in stride — in his email, Nilson signed off as "Mayor of Oglivie (Ogilvie)."
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