Gemini Giant statue along old Route 66 southwest of Chicago is up for auction
WILMINGTON, Ill. (CBS) -- A 28-foot-tall Route 66 icon southwest of Chicago is up for auction.
The Gemini Giant has stood in Wilmington, Illinois since 1965. The statue is one of many "Muffler Men" – giant fiberglass advertising characters for which Route 66 was known for many years.
The statue was put up in 1965 outside the Launching Pad Drive-In restaurant and Americana gift shop in Wilmington.
The giant wears a green space suit and a space helmet, and holds a silver "rocket ship" in his hands. The "Gemini Giant" name comes from Project Gemini – NASA's second human spaceflight program, which was in operation from 1961 until 1966.
Community members who want to preserve the Gemini Giant statue have started raising funds to try to buy it. As of Monday night, the high bid was $47,500.
Items from the Launching Pad are also up for auction.
There are or once were other "Muffler Man" statues all along Route 66 and elsewhere around the country. Just three other prominent examples include the bespectacled "Eye Care Indian" at 63rd Street and Pulaski Road in Chicago West Lawn neighborhood; a Paul Bunyan figure holding a hot dog that once stood in west suburban Cicero and has since been moved to downstate Atlanta, Illinois southwest of Bloomington-Normal; and Chicken Boy – which once stood on top of a Los Angeles restaurant of the same name and is now located on an office building on L.A.'s Figueroa Street.