In article ,
says...
Oliver Smoot was a student in 1958, when his fraternity pledge class
measured the Harvard Bridge (364.4 smoots, plus an ear) and marked it.

The markings are renewed biennially.

Later classes carefully repainted those markings, highlighting the one
that corresponds to their graduation year. Older year-highlightings fade
over time. Except, for some reason, the 1969 marking is always kept
highlighted.

Trivia: the Harvard bridge is nowhere near the town of Harvard,
Massachusetts. The bridge crosses the Charles River, from Boston to
Cambridge not at Harvard University, but at MIT. You have to cross the
bridge and then drive through the MIT campus to reach Harvard Square.
(Additional trivial: you *can't* park you car in Harvard yard. This has
been illegal for many, many years.)

According to an apocryphal story, the Harvard bridge is named that
because of two essays from two local colleges. The essay from Harvard
University extolls the importance of Harvard to the local community, the
state and the world, claiming that it was only right that the bridge be
named after Harvard. MIT reviewed the blueprints of the bridge and
claimed it was only right that the bridge be named after Harvard.

A few years ago, the bridge was falling apart and most of it had to be
rebuilt without actually shutting down traffic over the river, so maybe
the MIT engineers knew what they were talking about.

(fwiw: I attended neither Harvard nor MIT.)
--
Kevin Willoughby lid

Imagine that, a FROG ON-OFF switch, hardly the work
for test pilots. -- Mike Collins