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The Graveyard That Made Me Kiss a Frog
I kissed a frog in Sparta, Wisconsin. Voluntarily. Enthusiastically.
The frog in question is one of hundreds of giant fiberglass molds scattered across a football-field-sized lot behind a nondescript sheet-metal building off County Highway Q. This is the home of FAST — Fiberglass Animals, Shapes, and Trademarks — a company that has been building giant roadside statues, mascots, and water park attractions since the early 1970s. It was incorporated under its current name in 1983 by a man named Jerome Vettrus.
FAST has worn the mantle of American titan-builder for over 50 years. Among their greatest hits: a 200-foot-long sea monster at House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin, and a 145-foot-long muskie in Hayward.
After each job, they keep the mold. All of them. For decades.
And that’s how a quiet field in rural Wisconsin became one of the most unexpectedly wonderful places I’ve ever wandered.
There are giant skulls and colossal dogs, oversized Santa Clauses and titanic mice. The fiberglass has weathered over time, giving the molds an almost ancient, stone-like quality, as though the yard is the remnant of some surreal lost civilization. Walking through it is eerie and beautiful at the same time. Some molds are rotted out, covered in weeds or standing water. Others are in relatively pristine condition and could practically be reused tomorrow.
That’s actually the point. The molds are kept for future reuse, since they’d be expensive to recreate. So this isn’t just a graveyard. It’s also a library. A catalog. An archive of American roadside whimsy sitting in the tall Wisconsin grass.
I found the frog slide mold and, yes, I kissed it (still looking for my prince). FAST has been making frog slides for over 35 years. You’ve almost certainly seen one at a water park somewhere without knowing it.
I slid down a few of the slides too, because how could you not. Then I stood there imagining all the places these forms have traveled, whether they were painted bright yellow or fire-engine red, whether they were installed at some mini golf course in Arizona or a splash pad in Ohio. I imagined the faces of the delighted kids who have no idea their beloved frog came from a field in Wisconsin.
The current owner took over around 2020, and if you visit during business hours, he might just show you around. The whole thing is free. Open 24 hours. No facilities. Pure wonder.
It got me thinking about waste and beauty. There’s something philosophically satisfying about a place where industrial byproduct becomes accidental art installation. FAST’s mold graveyard isn’t the only example. Ghanaian artist El Anatsui famously creates vast, shimmering tapestries from discarded bottle caps. Artists on Mount Everest have turned abandoned oxygen cylinders and helicopter wreckage into sculpture. The stuff we discard has a strange afterlife when someone thinks to look at it differently.
That’s the gift of Atlas Obscura exploring: we keep pointing you toward the places where someone already did the looking for you.
