Uncle Sam in Danbury is one of the largest fiberglass statues in the world.

World's Tallest Uncle Sam

Danbury, Connecticut

The World's Tallest Uncle Sam, striped and star-spangled from the top of exaggerated hat to toe, was built in 1965 by International Fiberglass, creators of the Muffler Men. Two of the 38-foot-tall Sams -- then the largest fiberglass statues in the world -- stood in front of restaurants of the Uncle Sam's hamburger chain in Toledo, Ohio.

Sam in the shop had his 1960s face restored.

(Several smaller 25-foot-tall Sams, built by a different company, stood outside of the chain's additional locations. One eventually ended up here.)

The Vietnam War soured the public's appetite for patriotic-themed fast food, so in 1971 one of the big Sam statues was sold to Danbury, Connecticut, where it towered over the State Fairgrounds. Sam's face was remodeled in 1974 and his extended hand -- a standard statesman statue pose that some thought was meant to hold a hamburger, and that possibly inspired the creation of this Ohio rival -- was flipped downward and wrapped around the head of an oversize cane, giving Sam's lengthy fiberglass back some welcome support.

In 1981 the Fairgrounds closed. Uncle Sam and dozens of the Fair's smaller statues were trucked to Lake George, New York, to populate the Magic Forest amusement park. Sam stood in the parking lot, and it was there that the red, white, and blue colossus acquired his exclusive "World's Tallest" label, with Magic Forest apparently unaware of Sam's twin, who wound up outside of a fireworks store in Michigan.

Dedication ceremony in 2019 drew a flag-waving crowd and a triumphant mayor.

Our national mascot has big shoes to fill.

A family of fans of the old-time Danbury Fair visited Magic Forest in 2018 and learned that the park was about to be sold. When they asked about the giant Uncle Sam, they were told that he was expected to go to Troy, New York, "Hometown of Uncle Sam." Alarmed by what they felt was an injustice, they got word of the sale to Danbury mayor Mark "Big Poppa" Boughton. He drove nearly 200 miles to Magic Forest and offered the owner enough money to forget about Troy and give Danbury the Uncle Sam.

We asked Taylor O'Brien, who was Mayor Boughton's communications coordinator, why Danbury cared so much about a statue that had been gone for 37 years. She said that the city had never really gotten over the loss of the Fair, and that a second, smaller Uncle Sam -- also a Fair refugee -- had stood inside the atrium of City Hall since 2012. People liked it, so the mayor reasoned that they would like the big Sam even more.

(Mayor Boughton also had a flair for the offbeat: he was the guy who renamed Danbury's wastewater treatment plant the John Oliver Memorial Sewer Plant.)

Uncle Sam was trucked to an aircraft hanger in Danbury. His 1974 face was peeled off, the original face underneath was restored, and the statue was sandblasted, patched, and painted to return Sam to near-factory freshness.

New York years: Santa and Sam with his old puffy face.

The original plan was to stand Sam out by Interstate 84 as a town greeter, but there were fears about vandalism and concerns that tourists might bypass the city if they could easily see the statue from the freeway. So Sam was instead erected in the heart of downtown, on city-owned property at the Danbury Railway Museum.

Uncle Sam's return and rededication on July 25, 2019, was one of the highlight events of the year in Danbury. "It is important," said the mayor, standing at Sam's feet, "to grab a piece of our history when we see it."

We asked Steve Gould, one of the Railway Museum's board of directors, what he thought about the statue. "We lost a couple of parking spaces," he said, "but we gained a really good directional aid."