The Lake Luzerne Muffler Man statue has always been one of my favorites. Ever since I saw a photo at RoadsideAmerica.com of this Paul Bunyan standing in the woods without a head and coming apart at the waist, this unfortunate statue has intrigued me. It is located near Lake George, NY where there are five other Muffler Men. Among them is the statue from the 1964 World’s Fair in New York now standing at Around the World Mini Golf in downtown Lake George. The rest of the area’s Muffler Men are located at Magic Forest, a recreational park for children.
It is not known when the Lake Luzerne statue arrived. The earliest report is that it was already installed at the Swiss Campsites entrance in 1976 when the parents of Lynn Kinsman purchased the property. Her parents changed the name of the campground to the Swiss Trail Campground and repainted the statue’s shirt to reflect the new name. After they sold the campground in 1985, the statue began falling apart and vegetation began obscuring it from view.
Photo Credit Debra Jane Seltzer
In the fall of 2002, the statue’s head was knocked off during a storm. It landed on the lawn, close to the side of the road. Soon afterwards, Debra Jane Seltzer, the creator and manager of RoadsideArchitecture.com, spotted the head and became its caretaker. She was in the area at a dog agility trial. When the competition wrapped up for the day, she went to take photos of the statue. She noticed the statue’s head lying on the ground in full view of the road. She worried that it might be stolen or destroyed by vandals. Back at the trial site, she mentioned the situation to a friend who insisted that they go get the head to save it from harm. They drove up to Lake Luzerne in the middle of the night and parked across the street from the statue. The head was light but awkward and slippery. They finally
Photo Credit Debra Jane Seltzer
managed to get it across the road by using the nose and ears as handles. Getting the bulky head into the van was even more challenging and stressful. Dogs were barking and cars passed by now and then.
The next day, the head was the talk of the agility trial. Everyone wanted a look at the bearded Bunyan face under the tarps. Debra Jane’s next challenge was getting the head into her New York City apartment. It just barely squeaked through the door. For the next eight years, the head lounged comfortably next to a radiator in her apartment. From time to time, she considered returning it.
Photo Credit Debra Jane Seltzer
Then, in September 2010, David Magliato posted a comment on RoadsideAmerica.com. He had recently purchased the Swiss Trail Campground and renamed it the Adirondack Memories Campground. One of his first orders of business was the Muffler Man. In his on-line comment, he expressed his desire to restore the statue and inquired if anyone knew the whereabouts of the head.
Photo Credit Debra Jane Seltzer
After reading the comment, Debra Jane made a pilgrimage to return the head in 2011. When she arrived, she noticed that the statue had been repainted and looked great with the exception of the missing right arm and head. There was no answer when she knocked on the door of the house next to the statue. So, she placed the head next to the garage door and hoped for the best.
The following summer, I was visiting many of the New York Muffler Men. I drove to the Lake Luzerne campground on July 9th. To my surprise, when I rounded a bend in the road, I saw that the statue had been re-headed. The Paul Bunyan stood on a hillside next to the road holding a big saw. The head had been repainted to match the recently painted body.
Shortly afterwards, I posted my discovery at RoadsideAmerica.com. Debra Jane was delighted to learn that, after all these years, the head had finally made it back on top of those broad shoulders. She said later, “It was a pleasure having the giant’s company all those years. But it is a far greater joy to know the head has been reunited with its body and in public where it belongs.” The Muffler Man is still missing his right arm. Maybe that, too, will turn up one day or a replacement will be installed.
Special thanks to Debra Jane Seltzer for her help in editing and to Roadside America for the information they have shared.
In early 2012, I visited the Muffler Man in Stony Point, NY. This statue is located at Camp Bullowa which is used for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts activities. It appears to be one of the early Paul Bunyans produced in the mid-1960s by International Fiberglass. While I was at the Camp, I met Ranger Joe Langdon and spoke with him about the statue. It is not known where this Muffler Man was located before it arrived at the Camp in the mid-1990s. It stands next to the parking lot near the main entrance.
Joe enjoys making large footprints in the snow and convincing Boy Scouts that the giant statue walks around at night. This Muffler Man is in remarkably good condition considering the number of tumbles and swimming escapades it has been through. The only damage is a crack on one of the statue’s boots. The wooden axe that the statue holds is a replacement of the original.
In December 2013, I went to Arcadia in search of the long lost Indian. At the campground, I met the owner, Johnny Lempenau. She was surprised that I was looking for the statue and quickly called someone to take me out to where it was being stored. As we bounced around in the golf cart, I noticed there were ATVs everywhere. The Peace River Campground is the only campground in Florida that allows them. My driver 
pointed out the intersection where the statue had stood previously. When the Indian was knocked over and damaged in a storm, it was hauled off to the woods. The statue has been there for ten years now and is covered and hidden by brush. The Indian is missing his feet and right arm. The fingers on his left hand and portions of his face have also been ravaged by time and the elements. His deep blue eyes stare up at the sky through the trees while the forest grows up around him more each year.
Back at the office, Johnny presented me with a pile of photos and newspaper clippings with information about the statue’s history. It turns out that this is the third Indian statue from Buffalo. It was moved from Buffalo to Tonawanda, NY where it stood at an amusement park with other fiberglass figures, including a giant whale. Then, in the mid-1970s, the statue was relocated to Perry, NY where it stood on a pedestal on Lower Reservation Road. At some point, the Indian lost his saluting right arm. The arm reappeared on a telephone pole at a private residence nearby. The owner of the statue could not persuade the person to give the arm back.
In August of 1995, Johnny’s relatives, who owned the Indian, loaded him into a truck with his feet sticking out the back and drove him down to the campground in Arcadia. Initially, the statue stood in grove of trees next to the office at entrance. Later, the statue was moved further inside the property.
It is unlikely that this Indian will ever stand again. This is the most damaged and deteriorated Muffler Man that I have seen so far. However, thanks to Johnny, I was able to get the statue’s history and link him to the other two Indians in upstate New York. International Fiberglass made many Indian statues in the 1960s. They were installed at 
We now know that the Pioneer statue was also originally produced by International Fiberglass. However, the mold for these statues was entirely different from the Muffler Man variations. The statues were developed in 1968 for the Wagon Ho! restaurant chain. Early on the owners of the chain decided they wanted to visually catch peoples attention and turned to companies like Orion and International Fiberglass to make this possible. Don Williams owner of Orion was a designer of air supported and inflatable fabric coverings and he designed and built the huge covered wagon canopies that covered the 
restaurant. International Fiberglass was hired to design and fabricate the giant teamster that would sit on the edge of the building in front of the canopy and drive the imaginary ox or horse team. These seated statues are 15 feet tall and Wagon Ho! called them “Wagon Masters”. The Pioneer’s hand positions suggest that the statue held reins or a whip but he never did.
folded by 1970. There were only about five locations built in Florida, the one in Birmingham, and a few others in the Vancouver, BC area. The location in Birmingham retained the covered wagon building and statue and operated for a few years as a Kelley’s Hamburgers and later as Dilly’s Deli. However, none of the buildings still exist in a recognizable form. Only two of the statues are known to have survived. The Birmingham statue now sits in front of a construction company in Moody, AL. The other statue was originally located in South Pasadena, FL. It is now installed at a used car lot in Pinellas Park, FL.
At some point, standing versions of these statues began appearing in North Carolina. At Debra Jane Seltzer’s website 
American Giants - Muffler Men 