100 Years, 1 Big Boy Scout

February 9, 2010

February 2010 marks the 100th birthday of the founding of the Boy Scouts of America. We congratulate the organization for its long record of channeling youthful male energy into impressive deeds.

Thanks to the Boy Scouts of America, there is a monument marking the hole-home of the assassin of Lincoln’s assassin. There are mini-Statues of Liberty scattered across the U.S.A.  The wealth of Boy Scout-created and -refurbished landmarks is partly due to a requirement of its Eagle scout candidates to conceive and lead a project that benefits their community. Old cemeteries get cleaned up, trails are cleared, signage is restored.

The latest impressive accomplishment is a monument — over 17 feet tall — celebrating the Scouts’ 100th anniversary.

The monument is the project of 16-year-old Eagle Scout Tom Smith. It stands in his home town of Woods Cross, Utah. He convinced the same sculptor who made the Jinxed 9/11 Firefighters’ Memorial to create it.

According to the Davis County Clipper, Smith believes that his monument is “the most ambitious effort to memorialize the Scouting movement in the world” — and he appears to be correct (The actual home of Boy Scouts of America Troop #1, Pawhuska, Oklahoma, has kept a low profile). It’s a tall pedestal, inscribed with the Scout Oath and other uplifting sentiments, and topped with an oversized bronze Boy Scout wearing a Smoky Bear hat, leaning on a wood staff, and peering at the horizon over the edge of a precipice.

The supersized Scout’s gaze is eastward, toward the Wasatch National Forest. Perhaps he’s looking for wildlife on the mountain slopes, or mentally planning a gorge-spanning rope bridge to an obscure pioneer grave.

Sections: Attraction News, Statues
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Roadside News: Feb. 9, 2010

February 9, 2010

• Boneyard Makeover: For years the Neon Boneyard has been the unofficial, private reliquary for old Las Vegas neon signs. This summer, according to the Las Vegas Sun, it will go public. The Boneyard has now closed so that Neon Boneyard Park can be built — an acre of landscaping, picnic tables, kiosks, and lots of old neon signs, which will replace the old Boneyard and be open to all.

• Epic Eagle: The man responsible for the world’s largest bronze war memorial sculpture in his Veterans Memorial Museum in Branson, Missouri, has his eyes on a bigger prize. According to the Pulaski County Daily, sculptor Fred Hoppe Jr. is building a new National Military Artifacts Museum in Waynesville, Missouri, and in 2011 he will top it with an 11-story-tall, $3.5 million metal eagle, the largest in the world.

• Jet Wreck Bonanza: The president of the sleepy Carolinas Aviation Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, wants to pep up his attraction — so he’s trying to buy the wreck of Flight 1549, which splash-landed into the Hudson River in 2009. His rationale? The flight was headed for Charlotte when it crashed. He told the Charlotte Business Journal, “For me, this is like a T. Rex skeleton.”

• Rebel Yell or Big Girlyman?: Charleston, South Carolina, is considering proposals for two very different new monuments to stand at its harborside. The first would commemorate the 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s secession from the Union — yet another controversial project from the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The second proposal, eye-opening in its own way, is for a $150 million, life-size replica of the Statue of Liberty — as a man.

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RoboCop Miner Statue: Open To Criticism

February 6, 2010

It seemed like a good idea at the time. A hospital in Raton, New Mexico, that specializes in treating injured New Mexico miners would feature a statue of a miner, nearly 10 feet tall, sculpted by a New Mexico artist. Even better, because of the sculptor’s “openness” style, the statue would cost $20,000 less than a traditional bronze statue of the same size.

The statue was placed on its pedestal outside of the entrance of the hospital in December 2009. And, according to the local newspaper, some of the miners do not like it at all.

“It looks like Robo Cop all shot up,” the Trinidad Times Independent quotes one miner, who also serves on the hospital’s board. “It’s not my style to make something solid,” the same newspaper quotes the artist. Sketches of the statue were reportedly seen and approved by the town back in 2007, so it’s not clear why it’s causing such a fuss now.

We’ve seen the Anatomical Swiss Cheese style in other pieces of public art, and we often find it more interesting than the predictable solids of Baked Potato Realism. For years we’ve made detours to peer through transparent people.

But then again, we admit we haven’t toiled in mines, been hurt, and found ourselves wheeled past an oversized cyborg with large chunks of its body missing.

Sections: Attraction News, Statues
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Portland, Maine: Portal Of Monsterology

February 5, 2010

Loren Coleman’s International Cryptozoology Museum has opened in Portland, Maine, making that city a go-to destination for the global community of monster-lovers.

“This is the only Cryptozoology museum in the world, I’m absolutely positive of that,” said Loren, the museum’s founder and curator. (Cryptozoology is the study of unknown or mysterious animals, which include monsters.)

Loren said that other museums are devoted to specific creatures, such as Mothman and Bigfoot, and that there are other museums broadly devoted to strange things. No museum, however, has covered the freakish field of monsters and creatures in general, until this one.

The museum has been “squeezed with a shoehorn” into its current space, a room and hallway in a building that’s also occupied by a book store.

Loren learns the interests of each person who visits — artists, scientists, engineers, kids, or people who just like monsters — and then gives a personal tour of the museum tailored to those interests. That sounded like an exhausting approach to us. “I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into,” Loren admitted, after opening the museum in November 2009. “But I’ve got a lot of energy for someone who’s 62. I’m hanging in there.”

A thousand people have visited the museum in its first three months, an impressive accomplishment in Maine in the middle of winter. Loren said that only a handful have been skeptics, and that one of them paid him a backhanded compliment when he left, saying, “You’re not a nut.”

In addition to his own extensive collection, the museum has become the repository of donated artifacts from grateful visitors who are happy that a place now exists that will preserve and exhibit their treasures. According to Loren, a Hollywood model-maker has already given the museum an 11-foot-long replica of a sea monster that was found in the stomach of a sperm whale in 1937. Another man donated his 40-years-in-the-making collection of Jackalope post cards. “So once again I’m running out of room,” Loren said, although he plans to keep the museum in its current location at least until the end of 2012.

“I want to follow the Frank Lloyd Wright model and live to be 93,” he said with a laugh. “That way I can see the museum grow into a bigger space.”

Sections: Attraction News
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Prairie Winter No Match For Unadilla Bill

February 1, 2010

On Groundhog Day, most eyes turn toward Phil the Groundhog in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. But it’s a big country, and Phil’s prediction may not apply to all parts of the U.S. Additional weather-forecasting critters have appeared in recent decades (some of them far less serious than Phil) to take up the slack.

Unadilla Bill, for example, has forecast the end of winter on the first Saturday in February every year since 1988. That’s when Unadilla was officially declared the Groundhog Capital of Nebraska by then-governor Kay Orr (The framed proclamation is displayed in the town’s bank). Bill has been dead this entire time. He began his work only after being caught in the garden of Unadillan Bob Brandt, who then had Bill stuffed, proclaimed himself Head Groundhog, and petitioned the governor for the declaration.

Bill’s big day is now the focus of an enthusiastic annual parade, which swells Unadilla’s population from 300 to 500 according to Nathan Bischoff, a member of the Groundhog Central Committee. Bill makes a triumphant entrance, duct-taped to the hood of the official Groundhog Car. He’s then detached and placed in the middle of the street to see if his shadow appears. “Some years it’s brutal, it’s really cold,” said Nathan. “But Bill is brought out no matter what.” The prediction is followed by a cream chicken dinner and a Soup and Jerky contest. We asked Nathan if the jerky was groundhog jerky, and he said no, although, “I’m sure there’s a few of us around here who’ve eaten groundhog.”

Bill is never far from his admirers. “He resides at The Bar during his off days, which are most days,” said Nathan, who explained that The Bar is the name of the town’s bar. This is where visitors can have their pictures taken with Bill, and purchase Bill postcards and souvenirs, including Bill’s official t-shirt, which changes annually. All profits go to the local rescue squad and fire department.

“He’s available year round,” said Nathan of Bill, now well into his third decade of postmortem prognostication. “We keep him dusted. He’s holding up pretty good.” [Thanks to Barry for the pix]

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California Anoints Confusion Hill And Moon Junk

January 30, 2010

January 29 was a busy, busy day for the California Historical Resources Commission. First, it designated Confusion Hill in Piercy — a Mystery Spot where the forces of gravity go haywire — as an official California Point of Historical Interest. And then it declared that all of the stuff left on the moon by Apollo 11 is a California Historical Resource!

The idea that just because something leaves the planet, doesn’t mean that it leaves the jurisdiction of the state where it was manufactured, could lead to messy turf wars down the road. For example, does California’s declaration mean that we’ll have to give back all of the stuff left on earth by the space aliens? Among the more than 100 moon items designated by California include “bags of human waste,” and we suspect that California is staking claim only to the bags, not their contents. Probably the many jugs of pee that populate our roadsides are safe from territorial squabbles — for now.

As for Confusion Hill, we think that the California Historical Resources Commission did credit to the bureaucracy. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat cites the Commission’s staff report, calling Confusion Hill a “notable” example of an attraction “created to lure Americans,” and also the only Mystery Spot in Mendocino County. Perhaps other states with Confusion Hill-like attractions will now follow California’s example and protect America’s valuable Mystery Spots. They have always been rare and fragile. And now they could become targets for angry space aliens, looking for a way to discombobulate gravity and float their junk back home.

Sections: Attraction News
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