Fruita, Colorado -
Mike the Headless Chicken

Mike the Headless Chicken

Celebrated decapitated chicken that lived -- for a while. The town has a sculpture of Mike, and Mike the Headless Chicken Days is an annual festival. Roadsideamerica.com Report...

Mike the Headless Chicken

Headless Mike is out front of Aspen Street Coffee. The sculpture was designed by Lyle Nichols, the same artist who made several pieces on display at the Hole in the Wall in Moab, Utah. There is a framed newspaper article describing the whole story inside the coffee shop. [Dorrie McPhetridge, 06/19/2010]

Mike the Headless Chicken

Right in front of the coffee shop sits this wonderfully put together headless, metal rooster. We saw everything from scissors to wrenches, steel plates to an appropriately placed horn on the hind parts. Worth the trip to see "Mike." [Pat Jones, 04/26/2010]

Mike the Headless Chicken

Mike the Headless Chicken, also known as Miracle Mike, was a rooster who lived in Fruita, Colorado, in the 1940s. One day his owner, Lloyd Olsen, chopped off his head to have him for dinner, but he didn't die. Instead he went on to live for nearly 18 months after the beheading, and toured the country in sideshows, posed for Life and Time magazines and newspapers all over the world, and had his own personal manager and lived a life of luxury, staying at the poshest hotels and eating the finest grain (fed to him via an eyedropper down his open esophagus).

This is no urban legend -- it really happened and is well documented. The town of Fruita has revived Mike's story and started a festival in his honor. A sculpture was commissioned and now adorns downtown Fruita. The Mike the Headless Chicken Days festival is held in May of every year. [Teri Thomas, 10/02/2000]

Headless chicken sculpted
A statue commemorating Mike the Headless Chicken now stands in Fruita, Colorado. The town sprang into the headlines last year when it chose the true-life story of a local decapitated living chicken as a civic theme.... [04/09/2000] Complete News Story