A reporter for the Cleburne Times-Review in Cleburne, Texas, wrote a good article about Ed Galloway’s Totem Pole Park, a few miles east of Route 66 near Foyil, Okla.
At the parking area you see many smaller totem poles scattered around the park. After getting out of the car you head toward the giant totem pole for a better look at the artwork on the side of it. About halfway across the park you notice a door in its side; you can actually go inside it.
You enter the door, and inside is a larg,e round room with paintings all around the wall. On one side is a plaque giving details about the giant totem pole.
The world’s largest totem pole was built by Ed Galloway, working from 1937 to 1948. It is 90 feet tall, 18 feet in diameter, and 54 feet in circumference at the base. It is made from 100 tons of sand and rock, 28 tons of cement and six tons of steel. There are 200 different carved pictures with four, nine-foot-tall Indian chiefs near the top.
Exiting the room at the base of the totem pole and starting around the side, you see what looks like a foot of some large prehistoric creature coming out of the base. Take a few more steps, and you spot another large foot. When you get around to the back side the mystery is solved. There you see a giant turtle head. This large totem pole is constructed upon the back of a giant turtle.
And the article hasn’t even talked about the remarkable fiddle house yet. Galloway may have been eccentric, but he also was amazing.
The Totem Pole Park’s Web site is here.