Classic Monster Chair

Sutton, West Virginia

This is the second of five Monster Chairs that appeared in and around Flatwoods in 2015-2016. All five were built by Allan Johnson, a local woodworker, then painted on-site by Andrew Smith, director of the Braxton County Visitors Bureau. Smith, with a fine arts degree from Fairmont State University, created a classic version of the Monster for this chair, closely resembling a portrait of it that was made from descriptions provided by two witnesses who saw it up close.

Each monster chair is ten feet tall, the same height as the Monster itself, which briefly visited Flatwoods and terrified the locals in the late summer of 1952. Three steps at the front of the chair lead to a platform seat between the Monster's outstretched arms, big enough to hold several panic-stricken-posing people at once.

All five chairs have the same wooden design, but Andrew painted each slightly differently, with the first chairs being truer to the Monster's reported appearance, and the last being examples of Andrew more-or-less winging it. "We figured if they were all the same, why would anyone visit more than one?" he told us.