Wow! I have been looking for photographic proof of one these for years! Looks exactly like the small promotional gift versions that MAPCO gave to shareholders - which I recently featured on the opening page of my new tome TIKI POP:
To me, the marriage of the tropical Tiki motif with the industrial world of coal mines just seems like such a great symbol of what absurd heights America's Tiki fever reached! :)
So I had looked into the "A Mine Named Tiki" phenomenon a bit, here is a little background:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1982/4/15/mines-shape-county-and-land-pexcept/
There was some stuff to be found - but without any Tiki imagery, the knowledge of the original meaning of the mine's names having been lost with the business changing hands:
I bought a collection of Tiki mine baseball caps for my camera crew:
But I found little evidence of the actual full sized statues, except for the article that Trader James linked above:
Tiki toppled -in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
Fate of Hood's cement sentry is undecided
By: Tracy LeGrand | Updated May 31, 2011
The cement sentry guarding the southwest corner of Kenosha and Main streets has fallen. For "at least 10 years," the statute belonging to former Broken Arrow Mayor Nick Hood has stood, drawing comments of both a positive and negative nature.
"I've had quite a few offers to buy it over the years," Hood said. "Now that its damaged I don't know if anyone will want it. It's been difficult to determine its value."
For the many who have found the "tiki man" - as Hood calls it - charming, there are some who take issue.
"Oh, I've had some Rhema students tell my wife they weren't going to patronize my business if we didn't take it down," Hood said. "I don't know if that had anything to do with this latest thing or not. It's been toppled over before, but this was the first time it was damaged."
Hood has researched over the years and says the statue's design is from Polynesian spiritual figures, exemplified by the famous enigmatic, megalithic stone faces on Easter Island.
"No one knows exactly what these were used for or why they are there," he said. "I've read they may be about guarding graves to keep away evil spirits. "One (French Polynesian) culture I read about wears tiny jade or wood or stone tikis around their necks for luck," he said.
Hood's tiki stands 6-foot, 10-inches tall with a 9-foot circumference base of solid concrete.
"The tiki figure itself has some metal framework and the concrete poured around it," he said.
How Hood acquired the stone figure is an intricate story involving a former powerhouse Tulsa corporation, a Kentucky artisan, a coal mine in Wyoming and a death.
"It originally belonged to Mapco Oil Co. and I'm assuming they had it constructed," he said. "It was made in Owensboro, Ky., by an artist or company called Elmer's Creations. Then they moved it to Wyoming to stand outside a coal mine to protect the workers," he said. "If you saw the front of the statue, you'd see he's holding a chunk of coal."
Mapco's financial woes meant a relocation of the tiki to the company's Tulsa office where it sat until purchased by an acquaintance who asked if the tiki could reside on Hood's property.
"When he died I became owner of the tiki," said Hood.
And there it sat, being toppled a few times but remaining undamaged until "either late at night Dec. 17 or early the 18th," he said.
When a friend alerted him to the state of the fallen statue, Hood called the police.
"It was almost in the street but they told me to leave it there while they looked into it," he said. "When they were done I got it moved a bit out of the way."
The tiki is no longer as handsome as it once was.
"They damaged it pretty good, whoever it was," said Hood. "I guess falling over it cracked its nose, neck, face and the front of it. I don't know if it can be repaired."
Repaired or not, the tiki will likely need a new home eventually as the City of Broken Arrow is seeking to acquire Hood's property for its gatesway-into-downtown project, said Hood.
