Missing Lake George sign returned

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. (NEWS10) -- A week ago, the historic sign welcoming people to the village of Lake George vanished. But now, that sign has finally been found.

“I wasn’t expecting to see a sign.”

Phillip Underwood was walking his dog on Saturday when he came across something unexpected.

“I knew that it didn't belong there, and that's why, you know, I took the picture," he explained. "And then, when I got back to my house, my wife was like, you know, that's kind of a big deal. You may want to call the police on that.”

Underwood found the 90 lb. sign leaning up against a tree on the Prospect Mountain Hiking Trail.

“They weren't trying to hide it," he said. "It wasn't laying flat on the ground. It was leaning up a tree, saying 'somebody find me.'”

Members of the community are breathing a sigh of relief.

"I was ecstatic. Ecstatic," Lakeaholic NY owner Joanne Duffy said. "It's such a historic sign. It's so beautiful, and it's really, it just like, it captures the essence of Lake George, it really does."

On Friday, Underwood let NEWS10 join him when he met up with Lake George Mayor Ray Perry to watch the sign get put back into place.

"It's not just a sign," Perry said. "I mean, it is beautiful in its own right. But it's sort of a landmark."

This isn't the first time the sign has been taken.

"This was a replacement for a past sign that was stolen but never recovered," Perry recounted. "So we're happy that we had a better outcome this time than we did last time."

“So I'm glad that I was here to see them put it back up," Underwood said.

Finding the sign also saved the village a lot of money. It would have cost $5,900 to get a new one.