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Giant Caveman in Grants Pass, Oregon

Giant Caveman in Grants Pass, Oregon

This Caveman is More Popular than Fred Flintstone in the Medford area

Drive your cheap rental car down Sixth Street in the City of Grants Pass in Southwest Oregon, and you can find a Big Caveman who has never, ever said “Yabba dabba doo!”

This Big Thing To See in the USA is an amazing 18 foot statue of a prehistoric man, complete with animal skin shirt and wooden club.

BigCaveman-BradCerenzia

The “Oregon Cavemen” club that this Big Brooding Boy represents dates back to 1922, when local businessmen first held a parade through the town, wearing furs and animal skins and swinging spiked clubs, all in an effort to boost the economy’s tourism take. The nearby Oregon Caves National Monument had inspired them to form this unusual brotherhood.

 

Grants Pass is located less than 30 miles west of Medford. Just drive your car rental along Interstate 5 (Oregon’s Pacific Highway) to get there. Grants Pass allowed the club to build the statue in 1971. Made by International Fiberglass, he stoically stood guard for 33 years.

 

Photo by Brad Cerenzia

As the town evolved, the Big Caveman quietly refused.

Unfortunately, on Independence Day in 2004, teenage arsonists set fire to this Proud Prehistoric Guy.

Happily, the town fixed the damage and he’s right back where he belongs today.

 

There was talk recently that the aging members of the Oregon Cavemen might donate the statue to the school system, but they ended up voting — almost unanimously — to keep him right where he is.

 

And the local high school football and basketball teams? They’re still called the Grants Pass Cavemen.

 

To see this Big Caveman, just drive your rental car along Pacific Highway (Interstate 5) from Northern California or (as mentioned above) from Medford, Oregon. Use Exit 58 and then turn left onto Scoville Road.

 

Drive about 1/4 of a mile south (Scoville Road becomes Sixth Street) and you’ll find the Giant Caveman standing just behind the Chamber of Commerce Building, 1995 Vine Street, Grants Pass, OR 97526.

 

Photo by Rick McCharles

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