Remains of Big Chief Trojan (2019)

Muffler Man - Big Chief Trojan

Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin

Type: Indian (originally 23 ft. tall)

Muffler Man - Big Chief (1985)

Arm position: Left arm down, right arm raised (when he still had arms)

Accessories: Go-Cart, before it disappeared.

Nickname: Big Chief

At the end of each short summer season, the business machinery of the Wisconsin Dells grinds the least successful tourist attractions into dust -- property and assets recycled for the next year's run at your wallet. For a Muffler Man statue, it might mean a move to a new parking lot, or reconstructive surgery to accommodate the latest visit-enticing fad or theme.

We first spotted this giant figure in the mid-1980s, standing in front of a go-cart track (and before we'd even linked him and others to the Muffler Men phenomena). He was an International Fiberglass Indian model, 23-ft. tall and made of fiberglass.

In his upraised greeting arm, Big Chief proudly held aloft a bright yellow miniature go-cart, his solemn gaze assuring families that serious fun awaited.

By the early 1990s (our next major Dells survey), his Chief headdress and getup was gone, replaced by a Trojan warrior in helmet, skirt and boots. But it was the same figure -- holding that same go-cart.

In 1998, we spotted Big Chief Trojan again -- this time at the base of the Mt. Olympus roller coaster. The coaster's huge Trojan Horse tunnel and other monumental structures of fake antiquity dwarfed the Trojan soldier and made him appear desperate -- if he was noticed at all.

Muffler Man Trojan Soldier (1998)

He still held his apparently indestructible mini go-cart.

In the ensuing decades, the Trojan Muffler Man disappeared from the Dells' main road and parking lots, assumed tossed into a storage pile, sold, or destroyed.

In 2019, American Giants investigator Joel Baker searched for the statue. He found, near the poolside loungers, a highly modified head and torso at Mt. Olympus -- a "how the mighty have fallen" faux classical statue fragment. No legs. No arms. No go-cart.

Seems like this might be the last stop for Big Chief Trojan.