On Flickr, there are nearly three thousand photographs of this structure/sculpture. So this will be no surprise. This is my shot.
It is near Wetmore or Rye or Beulah, Colorado, (depending on which account you read) on highway 165. The curiosity is under construction by a Mr. Jim Bishop. It has taken him forty years to get this far. It is a project envisioned and assembled by Mr. Bishop in a nearly single-handed effort.
Bishop is a well known American Rights advocate and part time scary nutcase. His politics are heartfelt and genuine but his approach to communicating those values strains his credibility somewhat. While I was there, he climbed upon a flat bed trailer and admonished the thirty or so tourists wandering about: “WAKE UP PEOPLE!”
And then he began what was probably a speech developed over decades of doing the same thing. The first paragraph included mentions of the constitutions, goodbooks, guns and pitchforks.
His views probably parallel mine in many ways about corrupt politics and handbaskets, and we would probably have enjoyed listening to his tirade denouncing all politicians and his own visions of the future. But unfortunately, this sort of harmless zealot often generates many enemies with opposing views light-years in other directions. This being a gun-totin’, bomb throwin’ society, I did not feel that safe in the small crowd of milling spectators.
Today might have been the day the orbits of opposing paranoid positions reached coincidental apogee.
Here are some background pages:
Roadside America
Wiki's version
Additional Interesting Information
I have not found a collection of the handmade signs anywhere so here are a few, stored in one place. You can get an idea of what the man is up against with his project. For sympathy or ridicule, whatever your taste, you have to admire his endurance.
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