Down the winding Kecksburg Road in Mt. Pleasant Township sits a rock that for years has been a point of encouraging — and sometimes profane — messages.

Protruding next to the road, the gray rock is stained blue, with white letters reading “Stay healthy,” referencing the coronavirus pandemic. Other colors peek through the blue, a nod to past messages written there.

“Some communities have these little unwritten billboards,” said Britton Crum, 36, of Greensburg. “They don’t have to be bought and sold and paid for. Sometimes they are just railroad trestles or a rock on the side of the road. As long as the message is one of positivity or uplifting hope, I’m totally for it.”

According to Crum, who has driven past it for 30 years while on his way to Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Somerset County, the rock has contained messages of peace and a variety of symbols including those of the rock band Led Zeppelin.

John Puskar, 39, of Mt. Pleasant, added, “The sayings on that rock go from patriotic, to current events, to sports, to someone professing their love to someone.”

He remembered a tribute to former Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen that was written on the rock when he was traded in 2018.

An unspoken decision to change the message, Crum said, comes in the form of a solid color painted over the previous words or symbols. In the chance something offensive is written, “it gets covered up within the next day or so,” Puskar said, noting that its remote location makes it difficult for township authorities to monitor.

Over the years, authorities have investigated vandalism in local municipalities and state parks, the most recent at Ohiopyle State Park in Fayette County.

Vandals in February spray painted graffiti on hundreds of feet of sandstone rock along the Youghiogheny River at the park, on the Ferncliff side of the Main Falls Area. Cleanup was expected to take a week to complete.

“This department does not permit defacing of stones or rock outcroppings anywhere in state park or forest land, regardless of the message or how ‘artistic’ it might be,” Terry Brady of the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said in an email to the Tribune-Review. “One person’s art can be viewed as graffiti by another, especially when the latter visits a natural area to see landscape free of any signs of humans.”

The Mt. Pleasant rock, however, has become a part of the township’s culture for years, Puskar said. Both Puskar and Crum look for new messages each time they drive past.

“I hope that the township doesn’t get offended by it because it’s been there for ages and I’d hate to see this little tradition come to an end,” Crum said. “I think it’s kind of a fun thing and you never know what you’re going to get when you drive past.”

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)