Buck Atom Space Cowboy Muffler Man on 66 - Highway Giants - Muffler Men on Waymarking.com

Located on Historic Route 66 in Tulsa, Oklahoma at the Buck Atom's Cosmic Curios on 66 shop owned by Mary Beth Babcock, this Muffler Man statue is 21' tall constructed by Mark Cline of Enchanted Castle Studios. In the past, Muffler Men have been modified, with an odd paint job, or a distinctive accessory, or an occasional weird head. Buck, however, is a new breed. He began in the 1960s as a Muffler Man cowboy in Calgary, Alberta, and ended up bashed and shattered in an Edmonton junkyard. The fragments were brought to Virginia in 2018 and reassembled, Frankenstein-style, by fiberglass artist Mark Cline, who made a mold of the body. This later became the basis of Buck. The rocket he's holding was designed and built by local artist Chris Wollard.

In 2018, Babcock opened Buck Atom’s Cosmic Curios in a former Pemco service station on historic Route 66. When Mary Beth Babcock started getting questions from customers about Route 66, she decided to drive from Tulsa to California to learn more about the Mother Road. Seeing Muffler Men on her trip made her want one for her business. She reached out to Joel Baker at American Giants, a company that restores and resells old highway leviathans (They had salvaged the Canadian Muffler Man). Joel planned to lease Mary Beth an existing statue, but when she started talking about her store's cartoon mascot, Buck Atom, he suggested she get in touch with Mark Cline.

Buck -- to paraphrase the official state proclamation read at his dedication by Oklahoma Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell -- was a cowboy who rodeoed up and down Route 66. In 1953 he was taken aboard an alien spacecraft, and spent the next 66 years zipping above the U.S., apparently at the speed of light, since he never aged. When Buck saw that the Mother Road needed help, he decided that Mary Beth's shop, a 1950s former gas station, was the perfect place to land on Route 66 as a goodwill ambassador.

Buck is dressed as follows: black shoes with yellow ties, blue pants with silver shield knee patches, a red vest, blue bandana, yellow elbow length gloves, silver space suit sleeves, a glass space helmet topped off with a yellow cowboy hat. He's holding a silver rocket in his hands. He's standing on a concrete slab bordered by red bricks. There is a sponsor's informational plaque on a post beside the statue.

Buck, one of the newest Route 66 attractions added to the Tulsa landscape to help revitalize this historic area, was unveiled on May 11, 2019.

Muffler Man Type: Cowboy Address: 1347 E. 11th St. Tulsa, OK United States 74120 Web Address: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log User Rating   03/27/2021 The Snowdog visited it