Archive for May, 2009

Here are some detail photographs of the One and Only Hippie Memorial in Arcola, Illinois!

Site: The One and Only Hippie Memorial
Location: Oak Street, Arcola, IL, just off of the railroad tracks
Hours: Always visible
Costs: Free to See
Date: July 14, 2007

Just down the block from the Raggedy Ann & Andy Museum is another awesome roadside attraction: The World’s One and Only Hippie Memorial. The monument spans 62 feet across alongside the railroad tracks in Arcola, Illinois. It was built by local Bob Moomaw. He had worked as both a tax assessor and railroad clerk, but disliked both jobs. He preferred painting messages on the side of his building with slogans such as “America you’re turning into a nation of minimum-wage hamburger flippers. Rebel. Think for yourself. It works!”

He started the memorial, a rendering of his life in “junk,” in 1992, just after having bypass surgery and years after losing a leg to cancer. Each of the 62 feet of the artwork represents one part of Moomaw’s life: from the The Great Depression, World War II and 1950s hypocrisy on one end, rising in the middle to a colorful expression of the years when Kennedy and the hippies rose to the declining scrap of the Reagan years.

Although Moomaw died from a heart attack in 1998 his work lives on and still graces the town of Arcola with its hippie presence.

Site: The One and Only Hippie Memorial
Location: Oak Street, Arcola, IL, just off of the railroad tracks
Hours: Always visible
Costs: Free to See
Date: July 14, 2007