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seen him. He's hard to ignore. He looms up from the surrounding spruce forest looking like Gulliver on the island of Lilliput.
He's a jolly figure standing 42 feet high (higher if you count the base). Pleasingly plump, as a Santa Claus should be, he weighs 900 pounds and has a 33 foot waist.
The Miller family, who owns Santa Claus House in North Pole bought the fiberglass creation in 1978 for $4500. He was only brought to Fairbanks this summer however. As can be expected, it was difficult to find a trucker who could move the large figure. A man from Kenai finally did the job.
"Part of the problem was getting him through the underpasses, but he sized it just right," Terry Miller said.
Originally fabricated in Washington as a shopping center promotion gimmick the huge Santa Claus was shipped to Anchorage in 1976. There, it was put up during the holidays in front of the old Federal Building on Fourth Avenue. Difficulty with erecting it and taking it down every year finally forced St. Nick into hibernation.
"When I heard of him, it was obviously appropriate for North Pole, Alaska, to have the world's largest Santa Claus so we decided to bring him home," Miller said.
The smiling giant was built in 1968 by Wes Stanley of Stanley Plastics in Enumclaw, Washington. It cost about $3500.
As originally constructed, Santa smoked a pipe that let off clouds of steam, waved one of his arms and even talked through a loudspeaker system. Told that his fiberglass creation was still around and living in North Pole, Stanley, who still operates his plastics business in Enumclaw, laughed.
"It's interesting that it's had so much usefulness," he said. "It was only designed for a relatively short life."
Stanley, who builds other fiberglass models and boats as well, constructed three Santa Clauses in 1968. The one now standing at Santa Claus House was the prototype.
Another went to Portland and the third to Nampa, Idaho. He believes they were the largest Santa's ever built. He doesn't know if either of the others is still in existence.
Stanley's "fiberglass sculpture" was always subject to inquiry, he said. The one that remained in Seattle would often come back for repairs caused by poor treatment while in storage.
By the time the Millers decided to buy him, Santa was a shadow of the man who appeared at the Seattle shopping mall years before. For part of his Anchorage stay he was left outside. Wind, rain and snow storms wreaked havoc on the old man. Most of his beard was missing, there were chips all over his body and his smile seemed a little forced.
The fiberglass equivalent of a plastic surgeon is working on Santa now. Scaffolding surrounds the giant figure which is permanently anchored on a concrete dais. Besides the facelift, Santa's insides are being reinforced and he'll be blown full of foam so that if vandals start throwing rocks there will be some bulk behind his façade. An 8 foot fence will be erected around him.
By the time the family is finished fixing him up, they figure Santa will have cost them more than $20,000.
But in terms of advertising for the business, it's hard to place a value on the giant.
As Con Miller said, "He's difficult to miss."
Con Miller , owner of the North Pole store said the fiberglass Santa was built by Seattle-area men for the 1962 World's Fair in Seattle. The big fellow was near the Space Needle for a few years and in later years he was a huge attraction at a Seattle Shopping Center. Santa also did time in Anchorage. Miller said his family bought the man in the red suit three years ago, but wasn't until this winter that they found someone with a long enough low-boy trailer to bring him to his final resting place in four pieces. If all goes well, Santa will be standing early this summer, Miller said.
-SUMMER OF 1983 Back to The Park Tour
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