The souvenir shop was never rebuilt, but you can still buy Pocahontas statue postcards in town. It was torn down in the late 1990s, and a new, smaller, and less cartoony teepee was erected in 2014. Pocahontas's unusual hands originally gestured toward an oversized teepee that stood behind her and served as the entrance to the Miss Pocahontas Souvenir Shop.

Pocahontas's oddly placed dress label is in fact her dedication plaque. But Pocahontas was built to last, and aside from the occasional repaintings that have softened her appearance, she has weathered the passage of time remarkably well. Looking at the statue, you'd guess that Ballard, who was a gas station owner and muskie farmer as well as a taxidermist, was more familiar sculpting fish than people (Or maybe his design was simplified by the Shaw brothers, who were attorneys, not artists). Her eyes are painted to appear overly large (but in earlier incarnations they've been tiny and wide-set).

The 'World's Largest Indian Maiden' is a minimalist giant, with tiny feet and an oddly proportioned oval head. Those who know Pocahontas chiefly from the 1995 Disney cartoon may find her unrecognizable in Iowa. In 1954 Pocahontas was set in place by crane - you can still see the metal loop at the top of her head - next to Highway 3, the longest state road in Iowa, at what was then the busy eastern entrance to town. and Frank, who apparently did the work based on Ballard's sketches. The senator's plan was carried on by two of his sons, Albert Jr. Shaw tracked down the taxidermist-sculptor, and Ballard was hired to design a 25-foot-tall statue of Pocahontas, the Indian princess namesake of the Iowa town.ДЄnd then - Albert Josiah Shaw had a stroke and died.Д«ut the idea for the statue did not perish. 'Check out my 21st century teepee,' says Pocahontas with her hands.

He thought that his hometown of Pocahontas - 'The Princess City' - deserved a similar giant civic symbol. A vacationing state senator from Iowa, Albert Josiah Shaw, was impressed. In the summer of 1950 a taxidermist named Warren Ballard built the World's Largest Tiger Muskie out of cement and chicken wire in his hometown of Nevis, Minnesota. The World's Largest Indian Maiden greets westbound travelers to her Iowa town.

Pocahontas iowa