Yes, this is another post about our trip this summer. And yes, none of the three installments have the same title, even though I have called them Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. I reserve the right to be consistent in my inconsistency.
I did want to write about our trip to Tillamook, but since our friend got sick and the trip got cut short it would have been a very short post. So instead we are going for another scenic tour.
A few weeks ago I posted about the horses of Shawnee, Oklahoma. Since then I learned that the horses were part of Shawnee's celebration of the Oklahoma Centennial Celebration, and were inspired by Oklahoma City's buffalo project. According to the Travel Oklahoma website there are more than three dozen horses (!) and they provide a list of locations for anyone wanting to find them all. If I am ever back through Shawnee I may have to set aside a full day to track them down, since this visit I only had a couple hours. Heck, I might just take some time with Google maps and see if I can find pictures!
As I said when I posted the horse pictures, we documented two of these installations on our trip, so today I want to share the pictures of the other one. The boll weevils of Enterprise, Alabama.
Enterprise already had a boll weevil monument, a statue of a woman in Greek robes holding aloft a boll weevil, the world's only monument to an insect. The statue was erected in 1919 in honor of the insect that destroyed the area's cotton crop. And if that seems counterintuitive, will it sort of is. But when the boll weevils destroyed two-thirds of Coffee County's cotton crop it forced the local farmers to diversify and paved the way for the peanut farms that brought renewed prosperity to the region.
Here is the original monument in all her glory. She sits in a traffic circle in downtown Enterprise, taking pride of place.
On the occasion of the monument's 100th anniversary the city of Enterprise developed a city-wide public art project of boll weevil statues. The first four - for the police department, fire department, farmer's market, and the city itself - were unveiled in January, 2019 with more statues added by local businesses.
We discovered the statues mostly by accident. We noticed one in front of a gas station at an intersection we passed several times. But once we saw that one we started noticing others. Finally I told my husband (Supportive Partner that he is) that I had to take a photo safari to get pictures of as many as I could. The statues, known collectively as "Weevil Way" now total 26, but clearly we didn't find them all in our photo safari and I am seriously disappointed that we missed the pilot at Enterprise Municipal Airport. Next visit (as with Shawnee) we will have to hunt down the rest!
When I went back through my pictures I only found six, but here are the pictures of the ones we did find:
This is the one that started it all. In front of the Marathon Oil gas station we passed nearly every time we went into town.
This fellow, outside an urgent care facility, is ready with a cure for whatever ails you!
And while we're on a medical theme, just down the street is an optometrist ready to give you an eye exam and an over-sized pair of frames!
Superweevil in his native habitat, outside the Enterprise Pediatric Clinic. Most of my photos are close-ups, but I did have this long-shot that gives you an idea of how these are placed. It did make them harder to spot when we were driving around town, and without a clear idea of which streets to cruise I missed a lot of them.
Superweevil, ready for his closeup and promoting childhood health via exercise, education, hydration, and good nutrition.
You.'ve heard of a man with a plan, but how about a bug with a plan? This guy works for Alfab, a metal fabricator in Enterprise, which is why he needs a grinding tool and a torch, to go with his plans.
I saved this guy for last, because he was very close to my heart. I am a retired accountant after all, and with his calculator and coffee he seemed like he would be right at home in any accounting office.
I didn't have all the company names for these statues, unfortunately. I promise to quiz the weevils more carefully next time, and get all their names.
We do plan to visit the third city on our public art list, my hometown of Grants Pass, Oregon, where Evergreen Federal Bank has sponsored BearFest, a collection of 50 bear statues which are displayed on the city streets during the summer and in Evergreen's Bear Hotel the rest of the year. We saw several of them when we were in Grants Pass at the end of our Retirement Road Trip, and promised ourselves a trip back to collect the whole set (in photos, those suckers wouldn't begin to fit in our car!).
And if any of you know of other cities where there are statues like the horses, bears, or boll weevils, let me know in the comments. I would love to find more of these!