Decades ago, a 26-foot monster vigilantly stood watch over Gary, a foaming root beer in one hand and a hotdog in the other.
Now Frank-N-Stein, the megalithic mascot from a bygone Gary restaurant, is set to return Sept. 13 to its original spot at 4629 Melton Road before it is sold by its maker.
The public is welcomed to visit the statue at its original location, now a dental office, from noon to 3 p.m. to take photos, meet the builder and share memories.
Dave Distler, the historical author and researcher who brought Frank-N-Stein back to life, said it started when he was given an investigative mission to find out what happened to the original statue, which was built in 1967. It was modeled after Mary Shelley’s classic horror monster in “Frankenstein,” but with the ’60s fashion flair of high-wasted trousers and an orange sport coat.
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“That’s one thing about Frank-N-Stein that sets him apart from all the others out there,” Distler, of Noblesville, Indiana, said. “He was built as a one-of-a-kind giant. I look at him as sort of a representative of what’s going on in the Gary area right now. It’s like a rejuvenation, in other words, a remaking and a reshaping and a rebuilding. And Frankenstein is sort of representative of that.”
The hunt for Frank-N-Stein came to an end when Distler learned the statue was destroyed a while after it was badly damaged by a storm in April 1982.
“I think it’s very ironic that Frankenstein was taken down by a storm and has just now been rebuilt, though it has taken 44 years,” Distler said. “But I think Gary and the region up here is going to be rebuilding a lot faster than Frank-N-Stein got rebuilt.”
The sale of Frank-N-Stein is only open to Northwest Indiana residents for $20,000 until the end of the day Sept. 13. If the statue remains unbought at the end of its Gary visit, it will then go to auction via American Giants, a preservation group for giant Muffler Men and other unique roadside fiberglass statues.
“I’ve got two serious inquiries right now,” he said. “My goal has always been to get it located back up in Northwest Indiana. And one of those people would put it within just a few miles of its original location, if they were to buy it.”
Interviews with longtime Gary residents inspired Distler to begin taking on the role of Dr. Frankenstein himself, a mastermind working diligently to reanimate a piece of the past.
The 26-foot behemoth had mixed reviews by locals. Many associated the giant on his light-up pedestal with fond memories of Frank-N-Stein restaurant, founded by Gary Mann High School graduates John Gourley and Ralph Peterson.
For residents like Gilbert Rodriguez, it was a family tradition.
“My family would stop there after bowling at (U.S.) 12 & 20,” he said.
For others, the sight was haunting.
“This thing frightened me as a young child,” said Monique Mitchell. “I forgot it ever existed until I saw this picture.”
A common story among those who were children at the time was that Frank-N-Stein was used as a boogeyman-like threat.
“Parents would say, if you don’t behave, I’m going to take you to the Frankenstein,” Distler recalled.
Distler spent 5,555 days in his home workspace building the statue from the feet up using a design based on witness accounts and photos of the original. But this towering horror icon would be stronger than before, he resolved.
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Over the months, he layered 35 gallons of fiberglass resin over 300 feet of 23-gauge steel mesh. Distler credited his wife, Ellen, for her patience as fiberglass debris became an inescapable reality in their home.
“That will make it really difficult to take down in a storm,” he said. “Since I’ve got an engineering background, I’ve built this with some unique materials and composites.”
Frank-N-Stein’s original creator, Richard Kishel, of Muncie, was one of Indiana’s giant forgers of note in the ’60s and ’70s. His other works include Muncie’s 32-foot Paul Bunyon statue and a 22-foot circumference whale and 21-foot-tall giraffe for the Indianapolis Children’s Zoo. Distler hoped to get the fiberglass molds of Frank-N-Stein’s head and hands from the late artist’s family, but the pursuit didn’t pan out.
Though Distler has done numerous boat and classic car restoration projects, this was his first time creating a fiberglass statue.
He is one of the many sleuths of American Giants who investigates the whereabouts of Americana icons that once inhabited local neighborhoods and served as Route 66 landmarks. In one such mission, he uncovered a giant Phillips 66 cowboy deep in the backwoods of Georgia for an American Giants restoration project.
With the resurgence of Route 66’s popularity, large novelty statues and three-dimensional advertisements are back in the spotlight.
“It seems that in this region, these statues started appearing in the ‘50s or ‘60s,” Porter County Historian Serena Ard said. “Think about the great American Highway expansion with the Interstate system of the ‘50s. Families were attracted to businesses with large and interesting statues that were visible from the road, and the ‘family road trip’ was an important part of many people’s childhoods. Mascots also became more important in the post-WWII American society as sports were shown on television, and schools rallied around a particular image or costume. High schools and colleges pre-1940s did not have the level of dedication to their mascot as they did in the 1950s and ‘60s.”
Northwest Indiana still has some giants, like the colossal cow outside of Kelsey’s Steakhouse in Valparaiso or the big brown cow standing on the Howard & Son’s Quality Meats sign in Munster. However, most of the icons began disappearing in the ‘80s and ‘90s likely due to the cost of maintenance and damage, Ard said.
“I think advertisement statues and mascots are generally an important part of American culture, particularly material culture and the representation of consumerism they fulfill,” Ard said. “If you consider how landmarks work to orient us in a certain place, these statues are absolutely vital. Think of all the social connections that are possible with people who don’t know each other but loved the statue of Frankenstein or some other image. Indiana is not alone in having these, but some of the region’s most remembered statues are considered iconic to those who grew up with them: Frankenstein, the Native American outside Enchanted Forest, the cow outside a butcher shop in Munster, the Big Boy statue, and more.”
This will be the last and only giant statue Distler creates, but he plans to continue being a private investigator in pursuit of an era’s lost giants.
“I think the popularity of roadside giants is at an all time high now,” Distler said. “Just the fact that there are so many people that love to go, take their families and see these things and take pictures with them. There’s tons of pictures on social media with people driving hundreds and hundreds of miles to have their family or have themselves pictured by these. They have become the destinations now.”
Distler said anyone interested in buying the Frank-N-Stein statue can contact him by messaging the Facebook page Facebook.com/groups/FrankNStein.
Anna Ortiz is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.