Mighty Og


Mighty Og was a roadside attraction consisting of a high sculpture of a gorilla from the waist up. It originally graced a billboard promoting Rawhide City, a tourist attraction in Mandan, North Dakota.
The statue was auctioned following the Rawhide City bankruptcy. It was purchased by James Lelm who engaged a house mover to transport it the to Harvey, North Dakota. He had intended it as an attraction to his hardware store, but opted not to proceed due to structural concerns. A site was eventually located on Highway 52. The figure shakes its fist at a large hornet above its head to indicate that "even a gorilla can't beat the Hornets", a reference to the local school team.
The structure was destroyed in a strong windstorm sometime before June 2005.
North Dakota has a number of these giant statues including a sandhill crane, a high Holstein cow, a grasshopper, and a buffalo. One hypothesis put forth is that these figures distinguish one community from another in an otherwise somewhat featureless landscape.