World's Tallest Uncle Sam
Danbury, Connecticut
In the parking lot of the Danbury Railway Museum stands a huge rendition of Uncle Sam. Sam is patriotic from top of exaggerated hat to toe, in American flag red-white-blue stars and stripes. At 38 feet tall, Uncle Sam is claimed to be the World's Tallest.
The statue was built for a failed chain of Ohio restaurants -- named Uncle Sam's -- in the 1960s. In 1971 Sam was trucked to Danbury, Connecticut, where he stood at the State Fairgrounds until 1981. When the Fair closed down, Sam was purchased by Arthur Gillette and trucked to Lake George, New York, where he stood in the parking lot of the fairy tale Magic Forest theme park. The fiberglass figure, weighing 4,500 pounds, was clear-coated in 1992, which no doubt helped him to survive years of upstate New York winters.
In late 2018 Magic Forest was closed by Arthur's son, Jack. The Gillettes had long planned to sell Uncle Sam to Troy, New York, Hometown of Uncle Sam. But when Danbury's mayor found out about the impending deal he swooped in, outbid Troy, and had the statue trucked to a warehouse in Danbury for restoration.
It was originally announced that Uncle Sam would stand near the interstate, beckoning travelers into the city. But those plans were scrapped, and Sam went up in the downtown Railway Museum parking lot on May 8, 2019.
When the statue was officially dedicated on July 25, Danbury's mayor acknowledged that there was an identical Uncle Sam statue elsewhere, but since that statue was up on a platform, the mayor said, Danbury's was better because it was the World's Tallest Uncle Sam standing on the ground.