Disappearing Popeye back with new shine

Springdale’s statue now Siloam Springs’ icon

A freshly painted fiberglass statue of cartoon character Popeye the Sailor Man stands on a pedestal Friday in front of its new home at the Sager Creek Vegetable Co. in Siloam Springs.

A freshly painted fiberglass statue of cartoon character Popeye the Sailor Man stands on a pedestal Friday in front of its new home at the Sager Creek Vegetable Co. in Siloam Springs.

Saturday, August 30, 2014

A Springdale landmark disappeared this summer.

For almost half a century, a 7-foot-tall statue of the cartoon character Popeye stood in front of the canning plant on U.S. 71B on the city's north side.

Now only the concrete pedestal remains, with the word "Popeye" in blue.

On Thursday, Sager Creek Vegetable Co. said the Popeye statue had been moved to the company's headquarters in Siloam Springs and permanently placed out front. The company acquired Allens Inc., the last owner of the Popeye statue, after its bankruptcy proceedings.

"For lease" signs are in front of the Allens canning building in Springdale where the statue once stood.

Trey Taylor, vice president for marketing at Sager Creek, said Popeye was repainted before he was put in his new place on Main Street.

"He was a little weathered-looking," said Taylor. "I guess just with the elements and all he had lost a lot of his color and faded out. So we took him and had him doctored up."

Popeye's feet appear to be filled with cement, said Taylor. Otherwise, the fiberglass statue is hollow.

Springdale Mayor Doug Sprouse said he was disappointed to hear that the Popeye statue had been moved. Sprouse, 57, said he remembers the statue arriving to Springdale in the mid-1960s.

"I really thought a lot of that as a kid because Popeye was my favorite cartoon character growing up," said Sprouse. "Looks like they could build them a Bluto, Olive Oyl or Wimpy and left Popeye over here."

Sprouse was referring to other characters from the Popeye comic strip, which dates from 1929, according to popeye.com.

Popeye was "a good-guy underdog with bulging forearms, a mean uppercut and a penchant for canned spinach," according to the website.

With his one good eye, corncob pipe and anchor tattoos, Popeye was famous for saying, "I yam what I yam, and that's all that I yam." The simple message resonated with children throughout much of the 20th century as comic books gave way to television cartoons.

Sprouse said a company has a right to do what it wants with its statue, "but I'm disappointed it won't be in Springdale anymore."

According to an article in the Springdale News on April 25, 1966, Springdale's Steele Canning Co. introduced Popeye brand spinach in January of that year. Steele Canning was later sold to another company that was sold to Allens. Sager Creek continues to can Popeye spinach.

Walter Turnbow remembers going to San Francisco to negotiate for the rights to use Popeye's image on cans of spinach. Turnbow was general manager of Steele Canning at the time. The company's marketing manager thought a spinach-eating hero was a natural fit for a company that cans spinach, said Turnbow.

Spinach sales increased after the company put Popeye's image on the labels, Turnbow said.

Turnbow couldn't remember exactly when the statue was placed in front of the Springdale plant, but he said he hates to see it go.

"We never did put a fence around it," he said. "People would always stop and take pictures with it. Every time we put a pipe in his mouth, it got stolen. We got to where we quit replacing the pipe."

Originally, the Popeye statue was holding a can of spinach. But thieves couldn't resist the spinach cans either, said Turnbow.

The entire statue was stolen a couple of times over the years but was always returned, Sprouse said.

Sprouse said he's worried that losses like the Popeye statue give Springdale an identity crisis.

"We're losing all our statues," he said.

Popeye's disappearance was preceded a few years ago by the departure of a 12-foot-tall chicken and turkey that had flanked 4-State Poultry Supply on U.S. 412. Those statues are now in front of Preferred Poultry Supply in Lincoln.

The fiberglass chicken and turkey statues were in Springdale from 1983 to about 2010, said Bob Elmer of Springdale. Elmer and Gerald Barrett owned 4-State Poultry Supply for 17 years.

Elmer said the big chicken and turkey statues also provided many photo opportunities.

"Everybody in the area knew the chicken and turkey," said Elmer. "They knew them as a landmark. We'd have carloads of women from Dallas going to the War Eagle Fair pull in our driveway to take pictures. They'd be climbing all over the turkey and chicken and we'd have to go out there and run them off."

Laurie Peoples, an employee at Preferred Poultry Supply, said people also stop in Lincoln to take photos with the big chicken and turkey. Websites, such as roadsideamerica.com, try to keep track of what is considered "roadside architecture," and statues of large farm animals fall under that category.

Sprouse said the city may need to commission new art.

Jonathan Perrodin likes that idea. He and his wife, Amber, founded Team Springdale with the intention of doing public art projects around town, including statues.

Perrodin said they'll try to do new artwork while keeping Springdale's history in mind.

"I feel like those things have a certain place in Springdale history," he said of the chicken, turkey and Popeye. "I don't want to simply look backwards with putting art in the city. I want to have a foot in the old and the new."

Siloam Springs isn't the only Arkansas city with a Popeye statue. There's also one in Alma, which claims to be the Spinach Capital of the World.

A section on 08/30/2014