NOTE: I now believe this animal to be Indricotherium, although with a shorter neck. We've had fun with it. Read on. . . .
A number of years ago, a tapir fan (I think it was hyrax; if it was someone else, please remind me!) told me about this phenomenon - a huge tapir sculpture along a highway in "nowhere" Oregon that didn't quite look like a tapir. After I moved to Oregon, I thought I'd be on the lookout for it, and guess what? We drove past it purely by accident on May 6, 2005, on the way to Crater Lake. I just re-found the photos. It has some tapir characteristics, and some clearly not. But I can't think what else it was intended to be. Certainly they'd know what a cow looked like, or a horse, and this is no rhino.
I can't imagine anyone making a tapir without a long snout, and there was no broken snout, because the nostrils are placed high on the muzzle.
Hub City Chrome is located in Chiloquin, Oregon. Check out the Google map to see one of the strangest locations for a tapir-anything. Of course, we stopped and went inside to find out what they could tell us. They were not pleased to see us. "We think it was made in the '60s," they said, "but we'll probably tear it down. All it gets us is people askin' questions and blockin' up our drive-through, 'specially in summer. They don't buy anything, they just wanna talk." Well, fair enough, I guess, I know what it's like to try to run a small business when people take up your time and don't buy, but maybe they should leave the "thing" intact and put up a sign. It's an oddball attraction, for sure. Maybe they should start selling replicas. I hate to think that it could be gone by now, but the weather and time were not doing it any favors.
If it's an Asian tapir, it would have the white on the top, not on the belly.
And it has a cow's tail, but it's definitely not a cow.
The feet look more like they belong to a rhinoceros, but the legs are clearly tapir. This is all I know. The Hub City tapir remains a mystery. But if you're driving south from Bend to Klamath Falls, or north from Klamath, do check it out and let me know if it still exists, OK?
