Paul Bunyan Statue with Hot Dog

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https://roadtrippers.com/places/bunyon-with-a-hotdog-atlanta/506dd0981d45e06e32000390

During the heyday of Rt. 66, travelers passed hundreds of signs, murals, and other forms of roadside advertising, each hoping to grab its share of attention. Among the more famous of these stood the fiberglass giants created during the 1960s by International Fiberglass of Venice, California.

Originally designed to hold an axe, the first of these was a "Paul Bunyan" figure, done for the Paul Bunyan Cafe on Rt. 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona, in about 1962. Most of the statues were derivatives of that one mold. As the retail attention-getters became popular, many of them were placed in front of service stations, holding such things as automobile mufflers and tires. They soon became known as "Muffler Men."

In 1965, H. A. Stephens purchased one of these giants, swapped its original axe for a hotdog, and placed it in front of his restaurant on Rt. 66 in Cicero, Illinois. Mr. Stephens purposefully misspelled the name of his business "Bunyons" in order to avoid a potential trademark conflict with the Paul Bunyan Cafe. A legend was born, and over the next 38 years, "Bunyons Statue" became a Rt. 66 landmark.