From Staff Reports 

To anybody wondering about that huge image of Chief Pontiac cruising around town on his back ….

 On July 13, the giant statue of a Native American marking Harry’s on the Hill was removed. 

Harry’s used to sell Pontiac cars when the statue went up. It served as advertising and was not unique to the dealership. It came from an era in Americana where huge fiberglass Chief Pontiacs, Sinclair Dinosaurs, and Muffler Men dotted the countryside.

 Chief Pontiac had stood at Harry’s for more than 50 years. The decision to remove him also came with the decision to remove a sales employee who had posted an “ugly” response to a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee. She charged he had mistreated her because of her ethnic background. The huge “Indian” at the dealership only added insult to injury.

 The statue was donated to Joel Baker, who goes around the country “rescuing” the fiberglass statues. The chief first went to Baker’s business, American Giants, in Natural Bridge, Va., for restoration. After that, it will go to Pontiac, Michigan, where it will be a permanent installation in the Pontiac-Oakland Transportation Museum, scheduled to open soon.

 The dealership had received a lot of offers for the chief; preliminary reports said he was going to go to Arizona. Harry’s owner, Pat Grimes said she liked the idea of sending him to Pontiac because people there will make the connection between the historical personage and the car brand.

 The statue was removed quietly and in less than an hour. In a private non-ceremony, the dealership was cordoned off by the police, and a crane was used to lift the chief onto the bed of a modified boat trailer.

 During the process, Baker remarked that the rescue may have been just in time. One of the metal supports inside the statue was terribly corroded, the chief’s fingers had begun to disintegrate, and he “was in need of a paint job.” As an aside, inside the statue, workers found arrowheads, a reminder of the old days when hooligans would use the chief for target practice after hours.

 While feedback on the statue’s removal was intense and varied, Grimes believes she has done the right thing.

In a statement to the press, Grimes wrote that the dealership was going to take, “whatever actions are needed to guarantee that no one at Harry’s on the Hill ever experiences anything like this again.”