Creepy or cool?
SUMMIT TWP — Some find them creepy, some say they're cool, others find them cheerful.
But everyone wants to know the story behind the stuffed animals appearing attached to utility poles along East Butler Road.
Individual stuffed animals are mostly nailed to the poles along a stretch of the road between Ervin Industries and Anna Marie's Winery & Cafe near the railroad tracks in East Butler.
Strangely, stuffed animals are even removed and replaced by others, according to area residents.
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Karen Hilliard lives in Rustic Ridge mobile home park on East Butler Road.“I see them every day when I go to work and when I come home,” Hilliard said. “Sometimes, there are different ones when I come home than there were in the morning.”She said whoever is placing the plethora of plush toys started off small.“The first thing I noticed was a teddy bear along the road,” Hilliard said. “I thought the garbage man dropped it.”The next day, the same stuffed toy was tacked to a utility pole.She said stuffed gorillas, frogs, Raggedy Ann dolls and others have been appearing on the poles along the road since then.“At first, it was not little animals,” Hilliard said. “They were, like, large ones.”
She said although they are switched out and attached to different poles or new ones are hung up, there's a mystery of the mastermind behind the strange project.“A lot of people walk and bicycle that road, so you don't know who it could be,” Hilliard said.Angela Weber, a chef at Anna Marie's Winery & Cafe, said employees often discuss the weird occurrence.“At first, I thought maybe there was a wreck and somebody had passed away,” she said. “Well, all of a sudden they are going the whole way up the road.”She described the stuffed animals as those you would win at a fair or carnival. She agreed they started off large, but now all sizes are used.The first stuffed animal Weber noticed was a large gorilla wearing big sunglasses, which seems to be a favorite theme of the elusive person nailing the toys to the poles.“I was driving down the road the other day, and I get almost to (Rustic Ridge), and there's two mice in a row, then two frogs, then a big purple gorilla,” Weber said. “It was huge.”She hopes the unidentified toy installer keeps it up.'I think they're cool'“I think they're cool,” Weber said, “but I am curious. Is it something to get people's attention? Is it something just for fun? Is it kids being bored?”Mike Drumm, assistant manager at Lezzer Lumber, comes to work from the opposite direction and does not pass the stuffed animal display.But he said employees at the store talk about them frequently.“We're thinking about putting a trail cam up,” Drumm joked, adding with a laugh that “It must be some kind of alien threat.”He said none of his coworkers have ever seen anyone nailing the toys to the poles, but noticed they change almost daily.“In this day and age, it could mean some really weird people out there who are cleaning out an attic,” Drumm said.
The animals could be coming from the dumpster outside the St. Vincent de Paul warehouse near the railroad tracks in East Butler, where new-looking stuffed animals peaked Thursday afternoon.Two men at the warehouse who did not want to be identified questioned if someone is pilfering the toys from the receptacle before it is emptied early each morning.A theory of Weber's would lend credence to that argument.“I've never seen anybody hang them, so it has to be happening in the middle of the night when there's not much traffic,” she said.Todd Meyers, West Penn Power spokesman, said driving nails into the company's wooden utility poles could cause a hazard for utility workers climbing the poles, as their metal cleats could hit the nail and cause them to slip.“By and large and the rule of thumb is people shouldn't be attaching things to the poles for their safety and our safety, and to keep the lights on for everyone,” Meyers said.The perplexing decorator apparently expanded their repertoire, adding its first troll doll to the display on Thursday.
