Longtime readers may remember a story from two years ago where Durelle Pritchard of Pontiac, Ill., decided to do something different about getting rid of a nuisance pine tree in his yard.
Instead of chopping down the tree, he had a chain-saw artist whittle it into the shape of an old-fashioned gas pump. Pritchard’s house sits just a block east of Route 66 (map here), and the sculpture served as a tribute to the Mother Road as well.
Pritchard gave us this emailed update about his sculpture:
I had landscaping done and many dollars worth of rose bushes & flowers to spruce things up around it. […] It receives many photos & looks. Many think it is an original old gas pump instead of my several-years-ago 75-foot-tall pine tree. People will pass by, then go around the block to take a closer look.
Pritchard also provided a photo. As they say at the Jackrabbit Trading Post in Arizona, here it is:
It sounds like Pritchard is still having fun with that former tree.
(Photo courtesy of Durelle Pritchard)