Fruita, Colorado: 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.

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....

A 4-foot sculpture of a beheaded rooster was unveiled. It is a 300-pound replica using ax heads and hay-rake teeth, along with sickle blades and other cutting objects. It is in honor of Mike the Headless Chicken, a chicken who lived for 18 months with no head. The town also has a Mike the Headless Chicken Festival.