Only in America (11 Photos vol. 3)

From a Wyoming pond to a South Carolina water tower

A troll lies by a pond in Wyoming, a cherry sits in a spoon in Minneapolis and a water tower in South Carolina is a peach. Volume 3 has eleven more works from ten states: roadside giants, park sculptures and one very large lumberjack.

More: Only in America (14 Photos vol. 2)

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🌳 The Green Man — By Mark Acton in Baltimore, Maryland, USA 🇺🇸

The hair, brows and beard are all leaves. Chainsaw sculptor Mark Acton carved the face into a red oak stump by the reservoir in Druid Hill Park in 2012. The Baltimore Sun put his two stumps at more than 12 feet tall and 20 feet around.

💡 Wood Fact: Termite damage was the reason the city had cut the oaks down, and it forced Acton to hollow out both stumps and use shallower cuts. The tough red oak ate up six chains.

📷 Photo: Baltimore Heritage / Eli Pousson, Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0)

More: When Tree Stumps Become Art (10 Photos)

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🌱 “UMI” — By Daniel Popper in Lisle, Illinois, USA 🇺🇸

A 20.5-foot mother figure whose body opens into roots, made of steel and glass-fiber reinforced concrete. Popper wrote that UMI means life in Swahili and mother in Arabic. She stood among the magnolias at The Morton Arboretum in his Human+Nature exhibition, which opened on May 28, 2021.

💡 Visitor Fact: The exhibition was planned for about a year and stayed for almost two. The arboretum closed it at the end of February 2023.

More: “UMI” Sculpture by Daniel Popper in Lisle, Illinois

🔗 Visit Daniel Popper’s website

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⭐ Dignity of Earth & Sky — By Dale Lamphere near Chamberlain, South Dakota, USA 🇺🇸

She stands 50 feet tall on a bluff above the Missouri River, next to I-90, holding open a star quilt of 128 stainless steel diamonds. By day the wind moves them and they flash blue in the sun, and at night LEDs light them. The statue was installed in 2016 to honor the cultures of the Lakota and Dakota people, a gift from Norm and Eunabel McKie of Rapid City to the people of South Dakota.

More: 8 Powerful Public Sculptures That Celebrate Strength, Freedom, and Human Spirit

🔗 Visit Dale Lamphere’s website

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🧌 Mama Mimi — By Thomas Dambo in Wilson, Wyoming, USA 🇺🇸

She lies on the bank of the pond in Rendezvous Park, near Jackson Hole, with one leg stretched out to a little island. The people in the photo are on it. Danish artist Thomas Dambo finished her in June 2021, his 80th troll, built entirely out of recycled and locally sourced materials. In his own rhyme, she helps “the little people dry, across the river flow.”

💡 Troll Fact: Jackson Hole Public Art maintains her every year. In June 2026, five years on, it told Buckrail she will stay as long as she is safe and sturdy, with a cleaning and a coating this fall.

📷 Photo: Jan Blattmann

More: 10 Giant Trolls Hiding in Forests, Lakes and Ruins

🔗 Follow Thomas Dambo on Instagram

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🪓 Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox — Trees of Mystery, Klamath, California, USA 🇺🇸

Paul is 49 feet tall and Babe 35, both built largely of wooden beams, chicken wire and stucco, at the edge of the redwoods at Trees of Mystery. The first Paul went up in 1946 and was destroyed by rain that winter; this one dates from 1961, Babe from 1950.

💡 Rain Fact: The rain came back for Babe in late 2007, when the ox’s half-ton, 9-foot-wide head fell to the ground. It was repaired in time for the summer season.

📷 Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, LC-DIG-highsm-15459 (public domain)

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🚙 Fremont Troll — By Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter and Ross Whitehead in Seattle, Washington, USA 🇺🇸

He is 18 feet tall, lives under the Aurora Bridge and holds a real Volkswagen Beetle, as if he had just swiped it from the roadway above. The troll won a 1990 Fremont Arts Council competition for the space under the bridge, which had been drawing rodents, old mattresses and beer cans. Steve Badanes, Will Martin, Donna Walter and Ross Whitehead designed and built it together.

💡 Car Fact: The Beetle in his hand has a California license plate, according to the marker at the site.

📷 Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, LC-DIG-highsm-50500 (public domain)

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🚗 Carhenge — By Jim Reinders near Alliance, Nebraska, USA 🇺🇸

Stonehenge, rebuilt with 39 old American cars. Some stand trunk-down in pits five feet deep. Jim Reinders built it in 1987 with about 35 family members, as a memorial to his father, who once lived on this farm north of Alliance, and dedicated it at the summer solstice.

💡 Town Fact: According to Highsmith’s caption, the city first lobbied to tear it down, then put a fence around it, and finally embraced it, calling Alliance the “Home of Carhenge.” In 2013 the Friends of Carhenge gave the land to the city.

📷 Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, LC-DIG-highsm-69580 (public domain)

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👨‍🌾 The Tin Family — By Gary Greff near Regent, North Dakota, USA 🇺🇸

A farmer, his wife and their son, made of scrap metal and old telephone poles. Mom is 44 feet tall, with barbed-wire hair. Gary Greff started the family in 1989 and finished it in 1991, the first of his giants on the Enchanted Highway, and wanted it to reflect the region’s farming heritage.

💡 Road Fact: The Enchanted Highway is a 32-mile stretch of county road from Gladstone to Regent, Highsmith notes, lined with more of Greff’s scrap-metal sculptures. The Tin Family stands near the Regent end.

📷 Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, “The Tin Family,” Enchanted Highway, Regent, North Dakota, LC-DIG-highsm-04904 (public domain)

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🍑 The Peachoid — Gaffney, South Carolina, USA 🇺🇸

A 135-foot water tower that holds one million gallons and looks like a peach. The Chicago Bridge and Iron Company built it in 1981 for the Gaffney Board of Public Works, and artist Peter Freudenberg painted it to look like the real fruit, a nod to the area’s peach orchards. It stands beside Interstate 85 and can be seen for miles. The leaf alone is 60 feet long and weighs seven tons, according to SPACES Archives.

📷 Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, LC-DIG-highsm-46659 (public domain)

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🦖 Mr. Rex — By Claude Bell in Cabazon, California, USA 🇺🇸

A concrete Tyrannosaurus taller than the palm trees in Cabazon, west of Palm Springs. Claude Bell, a sculptor and portrait artist at Knott’s Berry Farm, built his dinosaurs to bring customers to his Wheel Inn restaurant. Mr. Rex took him from 1981 to 1986.

💡 Dino Fact: His older neighbor, the 45-foot Dinny, was made from concrete and steel salvaged from a nearby construction site, SPACES Archives notes.

📷 Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, LC-DIG-highsm-24447 (public domain)

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🍒 Spoonbridge and Cherry — By Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA 🇺🇸

A spoon long enough to bridge a pond, and a cherry to match. Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen made it from aluminum, stainless steel and paint between 1985 and 1988, and the Walker Art Center gives its length as 618 inches, just over 51 feet. It is the centerpiece of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and has become one of the city’s trademarks.

📷 Photo: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, photograph by Carol M. Highsmith, LC-DIG-highsm-12674 (public domain)