The Fremont Rocket is a

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

of a

rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

in the Fremont neighborhood of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

, US. The rocket had been displayed at an army

surplus store A surplus store, military surplus store or disposals store in the Commonwealth of Nations sells items that are used, or purchased but unused, and no longer needed. The surplus is often military, government or industrial excess often called army-na ...

in Seattle's Belltown neighborhood until 1991, when a news radio broadcast said the store was dismantling its "circa 1950

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

rocket fuselage ", prompting the Fremont Business Association to buy it for $750. The Business Association took a few years to overcome problems with assembling and erecting the rocket, finally placing it at its current location at N 35th St. and Evanston Ave N. on June 3, 1994. Though the salvaged "rocket fuselage" description has been repeated by some sources, and a Fremont chamber of commerce member called it a "de-fanged Cold War emblem", it is not made of any rocket or missile parts but rather from a military surplus tail boom originally part of a Fairchild C-119 'Flying Boxcar' transport aircraft. It has a stereotypical 1920s streamlined

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

sci-fi space rocket appearance, adorned with "neon laser pods" in the style of rayguns. The rocket bears Fremont's coat of arms and motto ''De Libertas Quirkas'' or "Freedom to be Peculiar", and was called "phallic and zany-looking" by

Lonely Planet Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books. History Early years Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 1972, they embarked ...

, which said the neighborhood has adopted it as a "community totem". The rocket's proximity to Fremont's

Statue of Lenin This article is a list of current and former known monuments of Vladimir Lenin. Many of the monuments in former Soviet republics and satellites were removed after the fall of the Soviet Union, while some of these countries retained the thousands o ...

contributed to its image as a Cold War relic.

References

External links

*
New planet added to ‘Center of Universe’
by Joshua Trujillo (August 29, 2013), ''

Seattle Post-Intelligencer The ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' (popularly known as the ''Seattle P-I'', the ''Post-Intelligencer'', or simply the ''P-I'') is an online newspaper and former print newspaper based in Seattle, Washington, United States. The newspaper was foun ...

''
Seattle, Washington: Fremont Rocket
at RoadsideAmerica.com
Cheshiahud Lake Union Loop
map, City of Seattle

Rocket A rocket (from it, rocchetto, , bobbin/spool) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using the surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely fr ...

Outdoor sculptures in Seattle Rocket sculptures {{Washington-sculpture-stub