Brownie the Town Dog
Daytona Beach, Florida
In 1940 a muttish Labrador retriever mix wandered into a Daytona Beach cab company office on Beach Street, which was then the town's main thoroughfare. The company and its neighbors called him Brownie, built him a dog house, and for the next 14 years he was a town celebrity. Each day he would make his rounds up and down Beach Street, going from store to store. He would wear a little can around his neck, into which people would put money that would pay for his food and his vet bills. The cab drivers chipped in every day to buy Brownie a pint of ice cream.
When Brownie died in October 1954, he had 75 mourners at his funeral. He was buried under a granite slab in Riverfront Park, adjacent to Beach Street, so he could be near the place he loved and so people could continue to visit him. The slab gives Brownie's unofficial title, "The Town Dog," and then, as a heartfelt afterthought, "A Good Dog."
On June 12, 2018, a bronze statue of a dog, frozen in a friendly bark, was placed atop a cement pedestal next to Brownie's grave. Although the statue is said to be an excellent likeness of Brownie, it's just a generic dog that was purchased for a fraction of the cost of a custom statue. Brownie's supporters said that he would have approved of this cleverly frugal tribute.