Webfoot Wednesday: Scrappo

I found the first of these two images in David Peterson del Mar's Oregon's Promise: An Interpretive History (Corvallis: OSU Press, 2003) and I found it highly amusing. Both images are available on the Oregon Historic Photograph Collections Web site.




The statue appeared in the Marion County Courthouse Square on August 1, 1942, and featured a mechanical jaw that could be manipulated using a rope to make Scrappo "talk." The base of the statue included a tractor donated by Chemawa Indian School and a 1,400-pound tire donated by Associated Oil. It remained standing until late March 1943 as a 30-foot-high reminder of the importance of contributing scrap metal and cooking fats to the war effort.