During the heyday of Rt. 66, roadside advertising competed for travelers’ attention, and among the most famous examples were the fiberglass giants created during the 1960s by International Fiberglass of Venice, California. The first, originally designed to hold an axe, was a Paul Bunyan figure made for the Paul Bunyan Café on Rt. 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona, about 1962, and most later statues were derived from that mold. As these attention-getting figures grew popular, many were placed in front of service stations holding items such as mufflers and tires, and they became known as Muffler Men. In 1965, H.A. Stephens bought one of the giants, replaced its axe with a hot dog, and set it in front of his restaurant on Rt. 66 in Cicero, Illinois. To avoid a possible trademark conflict with the Paul Bunyan Café, Stephens deliberately misspelled his business name as Bunyons. Over the next 38 years, Bunyons Statue became a Rt. 66 landmark. Stephens, aided by his family and longtime manager Agnes Abruzzo, operated Bunyons through January 2003, when he sold the real estate and faced moving the giant, which remained the business’s trade symbol. After John and Lenore Weiss of the Preservation Committee of the Illinois Route 66 Association approached the family, and despite substantial cash offers for the figure, the Stephens family agreed to keep Bunyons Statue on Route 66. Atlanta, Illinois, was chosen as its new home because of its central location, enthusiasm, and support for Rt. 66, and the statue is now on loan to the community, where it welcomes Route 66 travelers and children.