ATTLEBORO -- They are all gone now. The wooden statues that once decorated a field at the corner of Rathbun Willard Drive and Dennis Street have mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps taken in the dead of night by a stranger unknown.
It’s just a vacant field on the back nine of what was once Highland Country Club and is now Highland Park. The cartoon characters represented by the wooden statues weren't maintained and slowly rotted until they crumbled or fell down. But they didn’t go far.
All are piled on pallets tucked away in a corner of the field, hidden by woods, at the bottom of a hill next to the House of Dumont. It was established on Nov. 25, 1954 at 1 Rathbun Willard Drive, as a plaque on the home says.
Like corpses, they lie and show their rotted bases and worn-away faces. The Wicked Witch of the West from "The Wizard of Oz" is the only one still standing, and she guards a path leading to them. Near her is half a face peering out of the ground.
Very frightening. The latest city assessor's records show the owner is Al Dumont, owner of the Attleboro Landfill, which is now a Superfund site polluted with hazardous materials. The property at 1 Rathbun Willard is 2.
79 acres and sports a fancy brick home surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. According the assessors record, its value is $1,006,100. Late last week, a reporter seeking some history on the statues went to the House of Dumont and rang the bell and knocked.
No one answered. Three years ago a person named “Wilk” wrote a piece called “The Abandoned Highland Statues” on the website "Abandoned Wonders: Exploring Abandoned Locations in New England." Photographs were taken by someone called “Lassie.
” Wilk described the scene like this: "Off the beaten path and through the wild weeds, we came upon the group of forlorn statues. They are all made of wood. Each one once representing some character from children’s cartoons and fairy tales.
Some stand together. Others stand alone. Their appearances range from hauntingly beautiful to absolute unholy nightmare fuel.
Most of them are Disney. Some are even downright unidentifiable." Now they resemble fuel for a fire.
But being piled on pallets suggests that they may be loaded on a truck and taken some place. To a dump, a museum or will they just sit there for the rest of eternity, rotting and haunting the yard forever?.
