Saturday, May 1, 2010

DCPB Theme Day - Statue

The Tulsa Driller is a 76-foot-tall (23 m), 43,500-pound (19,700 kg) statue of an oil worker with his right hand resting on an oil derrick.  It was originally built in 1953 by the Mid-Continent Supply Company of Fort Worth for the International Petroleum Exposition. Six years later, it was temporarily erected again for the 1959 show. Due to the positive attention it attracted, the company donated the statue to the Tulsa County Fairgrounds Trust Authority which had it permanently installed in front of the Tulsa Expo Center for the 1966 International Petroleum Exposition. The oil derrick under the statue's right hand rests was obtained from a depleted oil field in Seminole, Oklahoma.


To better appreciate the size of the statue, here are Molly and Will sitting on the railing around his left foot.


What is a DCPB? It is a Daily City Photo Blog like this one. This is one of 1207 blogs world wide that post a photo each day in or about a particular city. In this case I post a photo every day in or about Tulsa, Oklahoma.


Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

11 comments:

Yogi♪♪♪ said... [Reply to comment]

Quite an imposing statue.

NicoleB, Egypt said... [Reply to comment]

Darn, that's one big fellow.
Beautifully done :)!

Sharon's Mum Anne said... [Reply to comment]

Did you get to see the car that reversed through a carpark wall, seven stories up in Tulsa? Not surprisingly, it made our daily papers.

I love this statue.

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

That's a giant Tulsa gentleman!^^

Piyush Garyali said... [Reply to comment]

That's a huge statue :)

DrillerAA09 said... [Reply to comment]

Outstanding photo of a Tulsa icon.
You could not have picked a better day. The Tulsa Driller would make an excellent Sunday puzzle.
Well done!

Ryan said... [Reply to comment]

Hey what a great structure, it has done well to survive the fifty odd years since it was built. Something you don't see everyday, thanks.

Pasadena Adjacent said... [Reply to comment]

Funny
I like how his feet are encased by red railing

Anonymous said... [Reply to comment]

It's huuuge!

I noticed a lot of "small towns" in the US and Canada have some kind of similar landmarks. In New Zealand and Australia too, I took quite a few pictures of the "giant salmon", the "maori statue" etc.

Unknown said... [Reply to comment]

The red railings are to keep him from walking away.

Actually they are to protect him from cars which pass by on the drive behind him.

Julie said... [Reply to comment]

*gulp* ... now THAT is big!