The outside of The Lamp Theatre in Irwin will be adorned with scenes and landmarks of the town’s past and present this fall, encapsulated in eight shadow boxes that will be installed along a new exterior wall.

“We’ve been pretty jazzed about this,” said John Gdula, president of The Lamp Theatre Corp. board of directors, which operates the renovated concert venue along Main Street. Gdula said he hopes the shadowboxes will be installed and the project completed by mid-October.

The posters will feature scenes from Irwin area history, such as coal mines, the Pennsylvania Railroad, which at one time had a station at Irwin, as well as the Lincoln Highway that ran through the borough and trolleys that served the town. There also will be a slice of of old movie posters from films shown at the Lamp Theatre decades ago, as well as an usher that used to work at the theatre, Gdula said.

“It’s really going to be something to see,” Gdula said,

The project evolved last year out of a desire to replace what had been a mismatched exterior of wooden panels and siding on the wall to the left of The Lamp’s front entrance. Air leaked into the building from the siding and brick wall, making it energy inefficient, Gdula said.

Shoff Construction LLC of Irwin removed the siding, exposing the brick wall. A recent faux brick on the front part of the wall holds the word “Lamp”placed vertically. Weather-resistant faux brickwork will be attached to cover the remainder of the exterior wall, Gdula said, with the shawdowboxes attached to the new exterior.

The shawdowboxes will hold six-foot-wide-by-10-foot tall posters that will depict scenes of Irwin and its history, printed on a poly-carbonate surface that is stronger than acrylic, said Nick Benevento, sales manager for Laurel Print & Graphics of Duquesne, which is printing the large posters. The poly-carbonate surfaces will be translucent and illuminated in the back by LED lights, Benevento said.

The Lamp board hopes to have solar panels installed on the roof of the theatre building, which would generate sufficient electricity to power the LED lights in the shadow boxes, making it a greener building, Gdula said.

The Lamp officials tapped North Huntingdon native Greg Gongaware, an artist living in the York area, to design the scenes inside the shadowboxes. He said he worked with a committee of stakeholders determining what to feature in the shadowboxes, including the Norwin Historical Society.

“I want everybody to have a say in this,” Gongaware said.

Gongaware, a Norwin High School graduate who worked with the National Park Service on illustrations, said he viewed postcards from the Norwin Historical Society’s collection and “hundreds” of photographs and different illustrations in deciding what to select for the shadowboxes. The scenes will give a nod to what the town was like in the 1800s, with horse-drawn carriages, public schools, businesses and Main Street scenes.

The project will cost about $140,000. The Lamp has financial commitments that will cover most of the costs, Gdula said, with some of the some of the expense being covered through fundraising events, such as an upcoming golf outing on Sept. 23 at Greensburg Country Club along Route 130 in Hempfield.

As a way of generating more revenue, The Lamp is selling “naming rights” to the shadowboxes. Sponsors have signed up for the naming rights to four of the eight shadow boxes, providing between $6,000 and $9,000 per box for a five-year period. Sponsorships are available for the other shadow boxes, Gdula said.

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