Mexican Cowboy, Courtesy of Mexico's President

San Diego, California

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the founding of the presido (fort) at San Diego, Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz visited in November 1970 and brought a gift: a heroic bronze statue of a idealized 18th century Spanish horseman wearing what looks like a sombrero. The city, surprised by the unexpected gift, stuck it in an out-of-the-way, obscure corner of Presidio Park, where you have to look hard to see it. A chain link fence surrounds the statue, further limiting its embrace by the current inhabitants of San Diego.

Gustavo Diaz Ordaz was a hardline president, and the fact that his name is the biggest on the statue's plaque naturally leads to the assumption that he's the horseman. But the man on the horse looks nothing like Gustavo Diaz Ordaz, who wore business suits, did not have a mustache, and resembled Orville Redenbacher.