Sasquatch Chronicles Blog

CELINA, Ohio (WANE) — A towering wooden sculpture depicting a Bigfoot-like creature has taken over the Mercer County Fairgrounds and plans to stick around.

The sculpture, which is temporarily named the “Giant,” was designed and built by Bear Hollow Wood Carvers, a chainsaw wood carving business based in French Lick, Indiana.

Cara Muhlenkamp, fair manager at the Mercer County Fairgrounds, said the fairgrounds wanted to add something that could serve as both a new tourist attraction for Celina and Mercer County while also giving the fairgrounds a mascot.

“Celina is becoming much more of a destination location,” Muhlenkamp said. “[Grand Lake] gets a lot of interest, downtown gets a lot of interest, so how can we as a county fair play in on that.” Muhlenkamp said the wooden sculpture will also play into the agricultural ties of Mercer County, which was the top county in Ohio in agriculture sales in 2017, according to USDA data.

Jason and Cindy Emmons, co-owners of Bear Hollow, said their Mercer County project is the second time they have built a “Giant,” and the team who built the second one learned a lot from the first experience.

“When we went with the first one, we accomplished it … we put it in the pose we wanted, we came up with a great design, and we just knew we could do it again, and we were excited to have that opportunity,” Jason said.

At the same time, building a 27-foot tall sculpture where the head alone weighed at least 600 pounds presented some challenges for the crew, including finding the right type of wood to use.

“You want some rot-resistant stuff, and we ended up getting some catalpa wood that was harvested there locally, and we made it work,” Jason said.

In total, nine carvers from seven different states worked on the project and were able to build the entire sculpture in less than a week.

Link to the video