Ed Galloway's Totem Pole Park

Ed Galloway was a woodworking teacher who retired to a farm near Foyil in the late 1930s and set about building something extraordinary. Fascinated by Native American art and history, and by the totem poles of the Pacific Northwest, he decided to build his own, not in wood but in concrete, mixing and hauling the cement himself by hand.

He worked on the great totem pole and the surrounding park for roughly two decades, into the 1940s and beyond, shaping and painting the enormous structure and filling the grounds with smaller sculptures and a many-sided building he called the Fiddle House. It was a retirement project on an almost impossible scale, driven purely by his own imagination and love of the craft.

The centerpiece rises about ninety feet, built over a base shaped like a great turtle and covered from bottom to top with carved and painted images, hundreds of them, drawn from Native American cultures across the continent. Galloway sculpted the wet concrete into faces, animals, birds, and geometric designs, then painted the whole in bold colors.

It is important to understand what it is and is not. Galloway was not Native, and this is his own folk-art tribute inspired by the totem traditions of other peoples, not an authentic tribal totem raised within a living totem-carving culture. Seen for what it is, a self-taught artist's monumental homage, it is genuinely remarkable, a triumph of vision and sheer persistence.

Beyond the great pole, the grounds hold other Galloway creations, including the Fiddle House, an eleven-sided building he raised to display the hundreds of fiddles he carved, along with other artwork and mementos of his life. It now serves as a small museum and gift area telling his story.

For years after Galloway's death the park fell into disrepair, its concrete cracking and its paint fading. A local arts group and volunteers took up its restoration, repairing the totem pole and the buildings and repainting the fading images. Their care is why the park survives today as a cherished piece of the state's folk-art heritage.

The park sits in the green, rolling northeast corner of Oklahoma, in the historic Cherokee Nation, just a couple of miles off Route 66. Its proximity to the Mother Road has made it a favorite detour for road-trippers seeking out the offbeat and handmade landmarks that give old Route 66 its character.

Nearby Claremore and Chelsea add more to a day out, from Will Rogers history to vintage Route 66 sights, but the totem pole park stands on its own as one of the most striking pieces of folk art anywhere along the old highway, and a testament to what one determined person can build.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.