Postcards from Roadside Oddities - “Totem poles, whales, slug bugs and Cadillacs!”

From "The World's Second Largest Rocking Chair" in Cuba, Missouri, to "The Leaning Water Tower of Groom, Texas," Route 66 boasts no shortage of roadside oddities that are all great for a stop, snap and chuckle. At the same time, it's easy to forget that these sites were all built by people with hopes and dreams, and most always offer a bit more than what meets the eyes. In this episode, we'll visit Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park, The Blue Whale of Catoosa, and the Slug Bug and Cadillac Ranches to not only learn of their origins, but hear a few stories of how they've shaped and impacted lives.

TRANSCRIPT

(As this transcript was obtained via a computerized service, please forgive any typos, spelling and grammatical errors)

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Evan Stern (00:00):

Pistachio Land advertises itself as "The nuttiest place in New Mexico." Its billboards touting The World's Largest Pistachio litter the state. And I was crestfallen to discover that a visit there would require a four hour detour south of 66. I needn't have despaired, though, as the mother road has no shortage of roadside oddities. And today we'll visit a few that are great for a stretch snap and chuckle, but they were also built by people with hopes and dreams. And as you'll hear, I think they offer a little more than what meets the eyes. I'm Evan Stern. And this is Vanishing Postcards.

Evan Stern (00:52):

Most roadies myself included will tell you that a drive down 66 is best enjoyed at an unhurried pace. Even then I admittedly came close to missing Foyil, Oklahoma. Perched about 10 miles north of Will Rogers' hometown of Claremore, this country hamlet's favorite son remains Andy Payne, whose bronze likeness is forever etched here in shorts and a sprinter's pose. A Cherokee youth, he bought his family's farm with the first prize winnings he took home after running 1928's, epic 3,400 mile Bunion Derby. But Mr. Payne was by no means the only man of distinction to hail from here. And if you turn off and head a little ways past Annie's diner, you'll see this handsome statue is by no means Foyil's most impressive monument,

John Wooley (01:45):

90 feet, tall, 18 feet wide. The base is 54 feet around and it, and, uh, a sign inside says it's made from a hundred tons of sand and rock 28, tons of cement and six tons of steel and 200 different carved pictures with four, nine foot Indian chiefs near the top.

Evan Stern (02:04):

That's John Wooley. A goateed award-winning writer, journalist and radio host, he's called Rogers county home. since the fifties. The structure he's standing before and describing is the towering centerpiece of Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park, which having written a book on is a place he knows pretty well.

John Wooley (02:25):

The, the, the big totem pole, which is called the world's largest manmade totem pole. I always tell people that's as opposed to the world's largest naturally occurring totem pole. But what they mean is that's, it's the largest concrete totem pole

Evan Stern (02:40):

In taking in this composition, which sits atop the back of an oversized googly eyed blue turtle, I can't say its rounded edges and narrowing spine remind me of any totems I've seen, and some descriptions I've read liken it to being more akin to a totem pole rocket ship, but the works' artfulness is indisputable. Its sides are adorned from top to bottom with carvings of lizards, penguins, lobsters and fish. Portraits of Indians in head dresses sit alongside sculpted Eagles with protruding noses, while one indistinguishable figure, even has a foot long cigarette jetting from his mouth. Most striking of all are the colors whose vibrancy lulls you into forgetting you're gazing at something fashioned out of cement. All in all, it's an impressive site made all the more remarkable when learning of Ed Galloway himself

John Wooley (03:34):

In rural Oklahoma, in this part of the country, you had to amuse yourself, right? So you learn, you found things to do you, you were couldn't, you know, you didn't have a lot of access to other entertainment. So you made your own entertainment and, and he was definitely one of those guys. He didn't have any Indian blood whatsoever. He just basically did this because he wanted to, he was apparently one of those artists who had to do things. What we do know is that he worked as a, uh, mechanics arts teacher, uh, at a, an orphanage in Sand Springs. And he would start doing, he started doing carvings and things like that then for people. And so he has, he was doing this for a long time before he started in on totem pole park. Complete one man operation. There were people who would help him a little bit, but he, it was all him.

John Wooley (04:24):

Uh, there are stories about him taking a wheelbarrow and going clear way, way down here to the river, getting a wheel barrow full of sand, walking back up here with this wheelbarrow full of sand, mixing his concrete and going in there and, and doing the, doing the, uh, the, uh, totem pole. I talked to people who were kids at the time and riding the school bus to school, and they would ride by here and every day it would just be up a little bit. He might get a foot and a half a year or something, two feet a year

Evan Stern (04:53):

Born in 1880, Mr. Galloway began building the totem pole in his yard as a retirement project in 1937. It took him 11 years to complete after which he proceeded to build a hogan, smaller statues and whimsical picnic tables, all fashioned out of similarly molded painted concrete. As far as it's known, he never stopped planning additions for the park until his death in 1962, yet his vision was never commercial, which is something John can attest to from personal experience.

John Wooley (05:24):

This is a place I grew up around now. Um, Mr. Galloway was still alive when I was a kid in Chelsea and my mother would bring my brother and me out and on, uh, Sundays. And a lot of people would do that and they would eat their lunches over here, uh, on these concrete tables. And Mr. Galloway would be sitting inside that Hogan and he would be talking about what his things, he did, the carvings. He did the, the concrete work that he did. He never asked for money. He'd sit there at the table. And if you wanted to come in and talk to him and ask him about stuff, he was more than happy to tell you, but, uh, he never, he, I remember he had a big jar when I was a kid in front. And it would say, you know, uh, for something like electricity fund or for, for the electricity to keep this going.

John Wooley (06:10):

And, uh, that's all, he never asked anybody for any money. It was always free. My sons, I have two sons that are in their thirties now, and we used to come out here, my wife and my two sons, but we'd drive by. And every time we drove by, it became a deal where I would have to talk to them in different voices of the, of the images that Mr Galloway had after. So I'd have to talk like a turtle and talk. And we did that for years, absolutely years. And it was just, that was just one of the things that was, you know, that was one of the, one of the, uh, it was just one of the attractions around here that we sort of took for granted -

Evan Stern (06:42):

Indeed, for years, this place was taken for granted. The paint faded and was often covered in graffiti. The Hogan was broken into where many of Galloway's hand carved fiddles were stolen or vandalized. And the grounds were frequently strewn with litter and broken bottles.

John Wooley (06:58):

After Mr. Galloway died, uh, it fell into terrible disrepair. Uh, everything was in bad shape. And at the time I was, I was trying to break into freelance writing and I was doing a little bit, I was always looking for more and a friend of mine who was an editor at the Tulsa World said, well, you know, they're always looking for stories in their Sunday supplement. I said, well, I could write about the totem pole and the disrepair that it's in and all of this. So I wrote a story and there was a woman Mrs. Holman. And there was this you see right over the fence, there, there, that used to be a little store. The story gets accepted. One Sunday it comes out. That Sunday morning I have the paper and I drive down here and I turn this corner and there are cars lined up and down this road.

John Wooley (07:43):

And there are people walking around this, which was in terrible shape and taking pictures of each other and everything. I drive up to the store. And Mrs. Holman is just, I mean, she's just, she's got pop, and she's selling stuff, and she's just going. I tell her, well, Mrs. Homan. I said the story's out, uh, in OK Magazine. But I said, I guess, you know, that she says, "This is like in 1955." That was when I, this that's when I learned. And that's what this place taught me, was the power of the written word.

Evan Stern (08:14):

The park was added to the national register of historic places in 1999 has since been beautifully restored. And John tells me it's probably in better shape than it was even when Mr. Galloway was alive. John says, when he comes here, he gets something of a mystical feeling. For me though, surrounded by sculptures of owls with comically sad faces, I feel a sense of lightness and humor. I mean, seriously, what is this place doing here at all? But no matter the reason it's brought me out today with John, who will tell you this quiet corner of Oklahoma and our world as a whole are better with places like this in it,

John Wooley (08:59):

But it's kind of a, it's this, this is a kind of spiritual place. You see that there was a real, um, joy and a real passion involved in all of it. And I think we need to remind ourselves of that, especially in an era. And again, I know this is cliche too, and I know I'm an old guy that, uh, that talks about this, but, but when there's all this instant gratification, you start looking at what somebody can do that puts in years of work. Mr. Galloway put in years of work and years of work creating this. And it's, I just think that's, I think that's pretty important to, for people to understand that, um, you can do something like this and influence generations, and it's something very positive. There's nothing negative about this is a very positive thing. And it's, it's, uh, you know, you come out here on a day like this, a beautiful Indian summer day like this, and you can't help, but be impressed and moved.

Evan Stern (09:52):

Another Oklahoman whose hard labor has impacted generations was zookeeper Hugh Davis, who like Galloway discovered a fondness for concrete and set about building a massive project of his own. "How big is the whale? Can you paint a visual of like how it looks and fits into the everything around here?"

Linda Hobbs (10:11):

Oh my gosh, it is very curvy. Well, it is 80 foot long, 20 foot tall on the head. And I think it's 18 foot, or maybe the head's a little taller than 20, but I know that live sperm Whales in maturity are between 70 and 90 feet. So Hugh went middle. It's, 80. It's real size

Evan Stern (10:35):

That's Linda Hobbs. And the huge sperm whale she's describing is of course, The Blue Whale of Catoosa. One of the most iconic sites along the Route, this winking gentle giant with a permanent smile rises above a murky pond where kids once jumped cannon bowls from its tail. It's been a long time since that or swimming of any kind was allowed. But that's what drew Linda here as a young mother in the seventies and years later, she doesn't hesitate to tell me her favorite places are the beach, the mountains and the whale.

Evan Stern (11:09):

But so this really is one of your favorite places on earth right here.

Linda Hobbs (11:13):

It is. It totally is. It is like, uh, the most peaceful place. One of the most peaceful places. People love this whale just as much as I do. I tease people, I should have fallen in love with a real person instead of a stick in the mud whale. I'm like, that's my running joke. Now,

Evan Stern (11:29):

To be clear, Linda has had a lot of love in her life. An Irish Cherokee with long dark hair and a finely boned face with piercing blue eyes, she grew up on a vegetable farm outside Checotah and worked for years as a seamstress before picking up a pen to author children's books. We're talking inside the gift shop near the ground's entrance. A small wooden hut that has the feel of an old fisherman's shack, she volunteers here most days sharing the story of Hugh and Zelta Davis, whom she proudly knew

Linda Hobbs (12:02):

What brought me here is my husband died in 2011, uh, and for about a year and a half, I was just kind of, Ugh. And then I remembered Hugh Davis and his wife Zelta. They were, uh, good friends. He was always making something. So I thought I'd call down here and ask if this nonprofit that was running this place, um, needed a volunteer. They did. And I'm, I wasn't gonna stay nine years. Don't ask. I really honestly was not gonna stay nine years. I don't know, uh, how that happened actually, except the first year, no one could tell me this man's name. He, uh, and I was so surprised. I couldn't believe that when they only stopped for a great photo, it was a great photo op, and, and that's okay. It's a good reason to stop, but there was so much more to him and his wife

Evan Stern (12:55):

Following 34 years as the director of the Tulsa zoo, Hugh and his wife, Zelta decided to turn their land into a park of their own called Nature's Acres. They raised alligators, built a reptile kingdom inside a model of Noah's arc and allowed people to picnic, fish, and bathe in their spring fed lagoon. Then Linda tells me that one night he made a pronouncement.

Linda Hobbs (13:19):

He went home one night, drew the whale on his dinner napkin, he told his friends he was gonna build a concrete room. They said, how are you going to do that? You've never really worked in concrete. Hugh Davis said, how hard can it be? He would just see things in his mind and know how to do it. He left, he never used a blueprint. He made his own molds, or he would find something that would work. He just, the grandson says he just, just went out there and sat down, started working. When he finished it- And it took him two years sitting in a flat bottom boat, scooping concrete out of five gallon buckets. He looked at all these kids and he said, um, "I have given your grandmother, the blue sperm whale, which is the biggest thing on earth. You can never ask me to build you anything bigger or better to jump off of." And- 34th wedding anniversary present. She knew he was building it. She just didn't know what it was gonna, I mean, how could you hide that? Uh, she didn't tell it was gonna be hers

Evan Stern (14:15):

Hugh and Zelta ran the place with heart until age arthritis and slimming profits forced them to close at the end of their season in '88. Hugh died in 1990. And like Mr. Galloway's totem pole, the ensuing years, weren't kind to the whale, but following Ms. Davis's passing in 2001, their son Blaine with the help of Catoosa businesses and volunteers reopened it. And it's now officially city owned. I'm told the whale was just painted and has a new deck, but its grounds still feel a living time capsule. This is what Linda tells me, draws people here. And that her job is about far more than selling t-shirts.

Linda Hobbs (15:01):

I I've I've congratulated newlyweds. I've been the first to know that someone is having a baby. I, uh, but it is the people that need hugs and the world is not sweet enough today. It's not.

Evan Stern (15:16):

Um, and you know, are there any stories that you can share about hugs that you have given here? Uh, meaningful hugs,

Linda Hobbs (15:23):

Meaningful hugs? Uh, a gentleman came through not too long ago. I asked him just like everyone, how are you doing? Where are you from? He said, I'm doing my, um, my, my list. And I said, okay, there's- every hug is meaningful. I that's what everyone needs to understand. Every hug is meaningful, some were, uh- but he looked at me and I said, so you're doing, you're going through pretty quick. He said, yeah. And uh, I said, you, I hear this all the time. You have the most amazing blue eyes I have ever seen in my whole life. I hear that a lot. And I've never thought about it until somebody said it. Well, this gentleman had amazing, beautiful blue eyes. And I said, I have never seen eyes quite to color of yours. And, um, he said this is because I'm going blind. And, um, in a month I'll be blind and in six months I'll be dead.

Linda Hobbs (16:29):

And I'm like, so I just wrapped him up in a big hug and, uh, very thankful he stopped here. Um, but you hear those stories every day and you go home and you cry a lot. And that's what people really don't understand. You carry it home with you and you have to get out. I'm like Hugh Davis in a lot of ways, I think you have to get in nature and you have to walk and just appreciate what God has given you. That that's been my life. Tears, laughter happiness, joy. This, this place has been such a blessing to me. I'm so glad I did it. And I, I don't know how it wound up being nine years. I really honestly don't.

Evan Stern (17:09):

Drive a few hundred miles past the blue whale and you'll eventually cross into the Texas panhandle here. Michael Wallis says 66 "got cut into pieces like some harmless snake chopped up by a Gardener's hoe." This of course happened to make way for I 40, which he likens to an endless airport runway. And as soulless, rest stops are pretty much the only interruptions you'll see along this flat, mostly brown stretch of plains,. it's hard to find fault in that description. But if you exit onto the shoulder about half an hour before Amarillo next to an abandoned overgrown motel whose sign claims a rusted 66 emblem, you'll be rewarded by a snap of color in the form of a small graffitied billboard decorated with two large and noticeable flags.

Steve (18:01):

Well, the, that one's, uh, LBJ. Oh, I can't speak- gay lesbian flag. Then you have the, uh, weed flag, you know, people like that's their business. That's what they want to do. Smoke. People like it. So, uh, nobody sells 'em in Amarillo and I started selling them. I'm about trying to make a, make a living. And if that's, if it'll sell, I'm gonna put it out there and sell it. They sell.

Evan Stern (18:33):

And uh, do you do are LGBT rights important to you?

Steve (18:38):

Well, yes. Yes they are. Because they're human and they have rights just like anybody else does.

Evan Stern (18:44):

Well. That's good. And have, have you ever had any, um, you know, grief, um, from people passing?

Steve (18:49):

No, sir. No, no, sir. Never. Nobody's ever said anything. Nobody has ever complained. Matter of fact, really surprising. I've had many, many tips put in the jar and I thank you for supporting the flag. That's that's very generous of people.

Evan Stern (19:10):

That's Steve. I didn't get his last name, a bald construction worker who set down his tools following some illness, he's a little taller than me and by my estimates is somewhere around 250 pounds. We're chatting outside the purple trailer he set up a few months ago to sell spray paint, t-shirts and sodas to anyone tempted to stop by. The draw here, of course are the five skeleton VW, bugs jetting out of the ground, a few feet away. They call this place "The Slug Bug Ranch." And Steve tells me a little about why it's here-

Steve (19:44):

Well, they used to have the, like I say, the gas station and the rattle snake shop and, uh, uh, trading post and business was slow. Everybody had moved out, so they was trying to increase business, but the slug bugs out here and it didn't, it just didn't go over good.

Evan Stern (20:04):

But so the, uh, so the rattlesnake, what was the rattlesnake, uh, place?

Steve (20:07):

It was the rattlesnake farm. They raised rattle snakes. So there <laugh>

Evan Stern (20:13):

I never knew that people actually raised rattlesnakes.

Steve (20:16):

Oh yeah. Yeah. When, uh, the old lady that died that owned it died, her son come out and just opened the cages up and let 'em go. So they say they're out here, but I've been, I've been coming out here for over a year, you know, just kind of look at things over and watching it, the traffic wise. And I've been all through here and I've never seen a rattlesnake yet.

Evan Stern (20:44):

As far as I can tell, that was around 2003. And while the rattlesnakes and businesses have all left, the cars have remained covered with years worth of garish tags.

Steve (20:55):

A lot of excitement goes on out here. You know, it's a relaxation. Really kind of a therapy. A lot of times people consider it art therapy, uh, cuz they come out here and they paint their, you know, their feelings out here on the walls, on the, on the bugs. And we've got plenty to paint out here.

Evan Stern (21:12):

This place wouldn't exist if not for Amarillo's larger and considerably more famous Cadillac Ranch, which local artist and self described 80 year old teenager Crocodile Lile describes to me-

Crocodile Lile (21:24):

Well Cadillac Ranch is, is an installation of, of sculpture. It's nine or ten Cadillacs stuck on the ground. Just about three miles west of town, south side of I 40 and uh, Stanley Marsh 3 hired The Ant farm out of San Francisco to build this, this thing in 1972. It took 'em two years to make that. And then in the nineties they picked it up and moved it where it to present location. Over a million people a year spray paint graffiti on the cars.

Evan Stern (21:52):

A bit of background. The Ant Farm was a collective founded in the late sixties by California artists Chip Lord and Doug Michaels. Its name was chosen to reflect their desire to create what they called underground architecture. And they described themselves as "an art agency that promotes ideas that have no commercial potential, but which we think are important vehicles of cultural introspection." As the story goes, one day member Hudson Marquez was flipping through a children's picture book about cars when he started thinking about creating a piece that would explore the rise and fall of the tailfin. After drawing up some plans, they began contacting eccentric millionaires. One of whom was Amarillo's Stanley Marsh who responded to their proposal with a 1972 letter.

Stanley Marsh 3 letter (22:38):

"It's gonna take me a while to get used to the idea of the Cadillac ranch. I'll answer you by April fool's day,. It's such an irrelevant and silly proposition, and I want to give it all my time and attention so I can make a casual judgment of it."

Evan Stern (22:56):

This installation featuring 10 Cadillac models spanning 1949 to 1963, buried half in the ground at the same angle as the great pyramid of Giza has no doubt inspired much in the way of judgment. Scrolling Google, it's not hard to find visitors who've left reviews describing the place as "nothing more than a junkyard filled of garbage and scrap metal" or "an absolute waste of time and honestly a disgrace." But I think Croc has some wise words to offer in response to such detractors.

Crocodile Lile (23:29):

As an artist, people say, oh, it's just you know, old cars stuck in the ground. Well, it's a piece of art. And you know, I mean, I don't, there's some art that I don't really like. I'm not crazy about some of the Renaissance stuff I don't really like, but I appreciate it because it's art. So that's why people should appreciate this. You don't have to like it, but appreciate it's a piece of art. Somebody came up with an idea and did something and that's what art's all about.

Evan Stern (23:55):

Whatever its intended meaning, I think the true art of Cadillac Ranch is found in its experience, which like its younger Slug Bug lampoon invites visitors to leave their own painted imprints if they feel moved to do so. Walking amongst this wreckage, surrounded by corn fields, watching couple, taking pictures, spraying names on trunks and mothers screaming at sons, not to even think about climbing them, I'm reminded of when Jean Claude and Cristo filled Central Park with orange vinyl, draped gates. I thought the gates themselves were ridiculous and looked like something out of a construction site. But they drew people outdoors and inspired them to interact in the heart of the city's brutal winter. I see something similar happening here amongst people who've exited their cars and the dreariness of I 40, which is how I meet photographer and car hauler, Sean Timothy.

Sean Timothy (24:55):

I come today from, well, I drove in from Oklahoma city via Houston via Austin. I, I travel as a professional transporter moving cars. I live currently in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I heard about it this morning. Uh, I saw a meme of Cadillacs in the ground and I didn't know, someone explained it to me and I'm heading west. So I figured I'd stop in, take some pictures, cuz a I'm a huge fan and proponent of street art or what I would call, um, graffiti art. And this is a form of graffiti. So anything to do with spray paint or, or live art really intrigues me. And I thought I'd get some snaps and happy to interesting place to come. You know, I didn't know what I was walking into, but to see everybody with paint cans, it was really, uh, kind of an interesting parallel.

Sean Timothy (25:44):

Um, you know, I'm seeing a lot of people out here that I wouldn't ever imagine spray painting something. And uh, there was a family that spray painted their flag from their, their home country, uh, Syria. And that was really interesting for me to see, you know, so I got a postcard for the Syrian family and I'm gonna print it and get it to 'em. That feels like a really meaningful connection. So knowing what I know about what's going on in Syria right now is really grounding reminder to be grateful for what we have here in the United States, anywhere a community can come together in whatever, um, whatever form that looks. I, I feel like this provides an opportunity for people to come together in the name of art or, or maybe the cultural heritage of it. But then you have a, it just puts people who wouldn't probably talk before into the same space and whether we're open to it or not. You know, maybe a small percentage of people are actually open to meeting a stranger, but those are my people. So I'm, I'm coming here to meet like-minded people. I'm coming here to, uh, share ideas. If anyone wants to talk on that level or just share a smile. And that, that means something being around people, especially in a polarized country, you know,

Evan Stern (26:59):

A concrete totem pole on a country road. An enormous blue whale. Slug bugs and vintage Cadillacs angled in the ground like pyramids. Are these ideas a little wild? Maybe. Then again, maybe they're just what our world needs.