A fire sparked accidentally by maintenance work on Tuesday destroyed the 19-foot-tall Frecs the Miner statue along Route 66 in Galena, Kansas.
Renee Charles, president of the Kansas Historic Route 66 Association, stated in a Facebook post that sparks during repair work on the statue’s arm fell inside the structure and set it ablaze.
Undeterred, Charles said “he will return!”
Here’s what Frecs looked like before the fire:
Frecs the Miner was erected in the summer of 2019, just west of the historic Galena Viaduct (aka Front Street Bridge) on the original alignment of Route 66 in Galena.
Frecs (short for Freckles) was started about 18 months earlier by Charles with the help of John Simon, who welded the frame. Friends and a few city employees pitched in on the project. Charles said most of Frecs was made of “poor man’s fiberglass.”
“I felt Kansas needed a Muffler Man on Route 66 and couldn’t afford to buy one,” Charles stated at the time.
Charles said Freckles was the nickname of her grandfather, who worked as a miner in the tri-state area of Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri.
(Image of the fire destroying Frecs the Miner statue in Galena, Kansas, by Renee Charles via Facebook; 2019 image of Frecs the Miner near the Front Street Bridge courtesy of Charles)