Little Bros Cavemen
Grants Pass, Oregon
In early 2013 the future of the towering Grants Pass Caveman statue was in limbo. Its preservation was overseen by the city's Caveman Club, but the Club's membership and finances were dwindling. One member suggested moving the statue to the city's high school -- whose sports teams had called themselves the Cavemen since the 1920s -- and then the school would safeguard the statue's future.
The idea brought a mixed response: some liked it, some were opposed, some were aghast, some at the school wanted a Caveman statue, but not the one being offered by the Cavemen Club.
The impasse was resolved by late 2014. A new generation of the Cavemen Club restored and left in place the original 16-foot-tall Caveman, and the high school got a new, nine-foot-tall Caveman statue, made by local artists Bob Eding and Del Hearn. Cradling a football helmet in its arms, wearing a number 64 jersey, the Caveman commemorated the school's 1964 state champion football team.
Then, less than a year later, the high school won the state championship in track and field, so a second Caveman was added, this one holding a javelin and a relay baton.
Referred to locally as the "Little Bros" (in contrast to the original "Big Bro" Caveman), the high school Neanderthals were sculpted to look less brutish, and more like very hairy student athletes wearing animal skins and no shoes. "They're a little bit more hipster," said James Lowe, the school's maintenance supervisor and "Big Chief" of the Cavemen Club.