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Arizona Statues

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Copper Miner
Bisbee, AZ		 Viking
Phoenix, AZ
This Copper Miner statue was created by Raymond Philips Sanderson. It was installed in 1935. The concrete statue is about nine feet tall and covered with copper. Bisbee was once a big copper mining town and this statue is a tribute its miners. For more, see this website. [map]

This Viking statue stands in front of Sunnyslope High School. The Viking is the school's mascot. The fiberglass statue is about 12 feet tall. It was installed around 1992. There are two other statues like this in Hampton, MN. There was previously a fiberglass Carpet Viking statue which had been donated to the high school. That statue was there from 1972 until around 1988. It had "rotted" and was destroyed at that point. For more about Carpet Viking statues, see this page. [map]

Fisk Tire Boy
Scottsdale, AZ
Fisk Tire Building details
Scottsdale, AZ
This Fisk Tire Boy statue is installed in the lobby of Discount Tire's corporate headquarters. The character first appeared in advertising in 1914 with the slogan "Time to Re-Tire". These statues were mass-produced for tire stores. There are several statues on display around the country including these two in Michigan.

Discount Tire also has another representation of the Fisk Tire Boy which came from the Fisk Building in Chicago, IL. The founder of Discount Tire purchased these details in 1994 before the building was demolished. He had them restored and incorporated into the Discount Tire's entrance sign. For more, see these websites: 1 and 2.

Arizona Peace
Officers Memorial
Phoenix, AZ
 William H. Passey
Mesa, AZ
 Taco Bell Boy
Kingman, AZ
The 12-foot-tall, bronze Arizona Peace Officers Memorial statue is installed in Wesley Bolin Memorial Plaza. It was created by Wes Chapman and installed in 1988. It was dedicated to all peace officers who have died in the line of duty. The statue depicts a 19th century Western sheriff. [map]

This statue of William H. Passey was created by Larry Passey and dedicated in 2004. It is installed in front of the Passey-Bond Insurance Agency which he co-founded in 1935. The statue holds insurance paperwork under his arm and an orange in his hand. There is a crate of oranges behind him which symbolically represents Passey's connection to agriculture. [map]

This Taco Bell Boy statue is installed inside the office of Desert De Oro Foods which serves as the restaurant support center for Taco Bell. One of the owners of the company won the statue on eBay in 2009. The nearly seven-foot-tall statue was restored and repainted. It was originally located in St. Petersburg, FL where it was installed on water skis and towed around the inland waterways to promote the local franchise. The statue was later stored in an attic and used as a lawn ornament. There were about 20-30 of these statues produced between 1962 and 1965. The first one was installed at the original location in Downey, CA in 1962. There was another statue in Snohomish, WA and there was one in Irvine, CA. For more, see these websites: 1 and 2.

Astronaut
Flagstaff, AZ
This Astronaut statue was installed at the Americana Motor Hotel in 2023. [map]

Construction, Production, and Maintenance Laborers Union
Phoenix, AZ
This relief sculpture is installed over the entrance to the former Construction, Production, and Maintenance Laborers Union (CP&M LU 383) office. My guess is that this was created in the 1950s based on the building design. Does anyone know more about this sculpture? [map]

Lunch Atop a Skyscraper
Phoenix, AZ
This 24-foot-long Lunch Atop a Skyscraper sculpture was installed next to the Giving Tree Cafe in 2021. It was created by Gregory Kirschenbaum and Blake Emory. The sculpture was inspired by the famous 1932 photo by Charles Ebbets which documented steelworkers eating lunch on a girder 800 feet above the ground. This sculpture also includes a 7-foot-tall depiction of Rosie the Riveter. For more, see this website. [map]

Gandy Dancer
Flagstaff, AZ
This bronze statue of a Gandy Dancer was sculpted by Clyde "Ross" Morgan in 2000. It represents a railroad laborer from 1882. These workers were known as Gandy Dancers, a reference to the Gandy Tool Company's tools which they used. For more, see this website. [map]

Hobo Joe
Buckeye, AZ

2012:
2020:
The Hobo Joe character was the icon used for the defunct coffee shop chain which was headquartered in Tempe, AZ. The first location was built in Scottsdale, AZ in 1965. There were about eight locations built in the late 1960s. Each restaurant had a five-foot tall Hobo Joe statue displayed in front. Jim Casey carved the original clay statues in Culver City, CA in 1967. He made three different sizes. Casey made molds from those statues and then produced reproductions. The smallest statues were cast in plaster. The five-foot tall statues and the 23-foot-tall statue were produced with fiberglass. It is believed that he produced only one of the giant statues. That statue was installed at the Hobo Joe restaurant in Phoenix. It was damaged by a fire and taken down. The Hobo Joe statues were produced until the late 1970s. The molds for the statues are long gone.

The giant Hobo Joe statue in Buckeye was never installed at one of the restaurants. Marvin Ransdell, who had a fiberglass pool business, produced this statue and the smaller ones after Casey shipped the molds to Phoenix. According to some accounts, Ransdell never got paid for the creating the giant statue so he hung onto it. There may have been one other giant statue installed in Las Vegas. If so, that statue is long gone.

By 1984, this Buckeye statue, unpainted at the time, was stored in Ransdell's backyard. The statue was willed to Marvin's friend, Ray Gillum. In 1988, after Ransdell died, the statue was moved to Gillum's Meat & Locker Co. slaughterhouse. It was painted before it was installed. In 2016, the property was sold and the statue was purchased by the Main Street Coalition moved into storage. In 2017, the City began restoring the statue. The statue was reinstalled in a new location in 2020. For more, see these websites: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. [map]

Hobo Joe
Clarkdale, AZ
This statue of Hobo Joe is an example of the five-foot-tall models built for the restaurants as described above. These statues were also designed by Jim Casey. This one is located inside the Verde Canyon Railroad's John Bell Museum. It was donated by Dale Randles, Sr., the owner of Hobo Joe's restaurants.

In 1970, Hobo Joe's restaurants became part of the Humpty Dumpty Restaurant chain. However, in 1980, Dale Randles and a partner opened a new Hobo Joe's coffee shop in Cottonwood, AZ. In 2004, this statue was found in an antiques store. It was purchased and installed at the restaurant. When, this Hobo Joe's closed in 2011, the statue was then donated to the museum.

There are two other five-foot-tall Hobo Joe statues at a private residence in Phoenix, AZ. There was another one at Castle Park in Riverside, CA. I don't know if that one is in storage or gone. There may be a few others in private collections. Let me know if you know the locations of any others. A possibly, stylized version of this character is used by a fireworks chain in South Carolina.

More Arizona:
Man (Mayer) [gone]
Centurian (Phoenix) [gone]
Last Supper (Tucson)

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