Route 66 in the News
Muffler Man: Cultural Icon
2005-06-05 10:54:37
LIVERMORE, Calif. - For decades, each spring a two-story cowboy has been hoisted along Interstate 580 to signal the coming of the Livermore Rodeo in June.
He's a manly hulk with a square jaw and a steely gaze. He's a cowboy among cowboys, but he's not alone. The unnamed big cowboy is one of an army of towering "Muffler Men" created 40 years ago as macho cultural icons of their day.
Once used as sentinels for muffler shops, gas stations, restaurants and motels across America, many of the 20-foot-plus highway hulks continue life with new identities -- Indian chiefs, pirates, cowboys, lumberjacks, spacemen and even Abraham Lincoln lookalikes.
Most have changed hands over the years, but you can easily recognize them by their chiseled jawlines and by their hands -- right palm up, left palm down -- designed to hold mufflers or tires, big axes, hot dogs, golf clubs or carpet rolls.
The "Biggest Cowboy in Livermore" was a gift from Gerald Bireley long ago and is one of the original "Muffler Men," as they have come to be known, hundreds of which were built in the 1960s and early '70s by a Southern California fiberglass company.
Bireley purchased two of the mascots from Phillips Petroleum Co. to stand outside his filling station on the corner of First and L streets in Livermore. One was in bad shape, and both cowboys were soon adopted by the Livermore Rodeo, the damaged one used for spare parts.
For a time, the rodeo cowboy Muffler Man, erected each spring on the south side of the freeway near Las Positas Golf Course, kept the Phillips 66 insignia on his hat and shirt. But his appearance has changed over time, with new paint and repairs whenever vandals have struck.
He was hit by vandals again last year, but with some body work and a spiffy new paint job donated by Groth Bros. Chevrolet, he has been spit-polished and is back touting the June 11 and 12 rodeo wearing brightly painted Wrangler blue jeans and a red shirt, along with a scarf to strengthen his neck and tin hat.
"He's in great shape," said Don Podesta of the Livermore Stockmen's Rodeo Association, which stores the cowboy at the rodeo grounds on a flatbed truck most of the year. "When he goes up, he's one of our better advertising things for the rodeo."
Livermore's cowboy is one of many featured in the "Muffler Men" hall of fame on roadsideamerica.com, a Web site by the authors of the "Roadside America" book that offers a tour of the country's quirkiest museums, monuments and mystery spots. At the Web site you can visit the Muffler Men home page and even buy a Muffler Man souvenir -- perhaps a "Muffler Man, Not a Girlie Man" mug?
Visitors can read and post comments about various Muffler Men, including Livermore's cowboy. For example, a former Livermore high school teacher reminisced on the site about rude things local high schoolers used to dangle from the hulking figure.
"Alas, one night, the kids got carried away and kidnapped the cowboy; he sustained some damage in the process," wrote C. Reilly. "He was recovered, repaired, repainted and now advertises Livermore's annual rodeo from inside of the fence."
Though alongside the freeway for only a few weeks a year before and during the rodeo, "every time I see him I have to chuckle and thank him for brightening my commute," the teacher wrote.
Gerald Bireley's son, Jerry, said seeing the cowboy go up each year brings back fond memories of his deceased dad, who was a rodeo parade announcer for many years along First Street and used his Phillips filling station cowboy as a prop.
International Fiberglass turned out thousands of commercial statues in the 1960s and '70s, not just Muffler Men but giant bikini-clad women for the Uniroyal tire company, most resembling Jackie Kennedy, as well as giant chickens and steers.
The first hunky-man figure was a Paul Bunyan for a cafe on Route 66 in Flagstaff, Ariz., and most of the subsequent cowboys, Indians, spacemen and other "cousins" were derivatives from the same mold.
Though there are variations, the one in Livermore "is the classic, almost the baseline Muffler Man," said Doug Kirby, editor of the Web site.
Though Livermore's cowboy doesn't have a name, "Next year, we'll have a naming contest with the local schools," said rodeo volunteer Patty Ising. "It will be a fun thing for all the local students to be able to participate in. This is part of their history, too."
~Bonita Brewer, Contra Costa Times
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