This article is part of the Fine Arts & Exhibits special section on the art world stretching boundaries with new artists, new audiences and new technology.

For more than two decades in this no-stoplight town in central Illinois, a 19-foot-tall fiberglass man has stood alongside a stretch of Route 66, holding a giant hot dog.

Now, up the block at the American Giants Museum, more giants have joined him. There’s a giant Texaco gas station attendant, a gaptoothed fellow called a Snerd, a waving man in a blue bow tie.

The free museum, which hosted its grand opening in May, celebrates the history of the now-defunct International Fiberglass Company of Venice, Calif., which made hundreds of the giants, also commonly known as muffler men, from the mid-1960s to the 1970s.

Joel Baker, a videographer and editor from Denver, owns the giants and memorabilia on display indoors and outdoors at the museum. Nostalgia, not just size, draws people to the giants, he said.

“They love the personal connection to something that was around when they were a kid,” he said. “And the memories, of course, are always better back then.”

ImageAtlanta residents grew to appreciate its first giant. “So now, even though he is a 19-foot-tall statue of a guy holding a hot dog, he’s our 19-foot-tall statue of a guy holding a hot dog,” said Bill Thomas, the director of the Logan County Economic Development Partnership in Illinois.

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