J.C. Penney Statue

Kemmerer, Wyoming

Covid-19 and changing tastes in retail were bad news for J.C. Penney the retail chain -- but good news for Kemmerer, hometown of James Cash Penney. When the company's headquarters closed in Plano, Texas -- and then announced that it would not reopen -- it had nowhere to put its now-expendable nine-foot-tall bronze statue of the dapper company founder. So it was shipped 1,200 miles to the town where Penney opened his first store in 1902.

Bronze Penney, wearing a double-breasted suit and bow tie, was unveiled on August 28, 2021. He stands in a little park, facing "The Mother Store" (the oldest surviving J.C. Penney) and only a few feet from the tiny house where he lived, which is now a museum. Three of Penney's grandchildren attended the dedication.

Penney, who lived to be 95, died in 1971.