Roll up the sidewalks

[George Thompson]

I've been using the expression "roll up the sidewalks" since the 1970s, at least.  Turns out that I didn't coin it, though.  Checking the likely files in Proquest turns it up in 1937, then 1941, &c.

It has even been charged by many would-be humorists that at 9 o'clock in the evening we roll up the sidewalks, knowing there will be no further need for them that night.
Lee Shippey, "The Lee Side of L. A.", Los Angeles Times, April 19, 1937.

Any earlier cites?

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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