Read time: 7 min.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they start thinking about what they’ll leave behind. Maybe it’s a family, a business, a body of work, or some lasting contribution to the community they call home. Today, I’m cementing my legacy by conceptualizing a 160-foot Garfield statue that should be erected across the White River in downtown Muncie.

You may know Muncie from Ball State, Ball jars, the Middletown studies, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or Toby Keith’s “I Wanna Talk About Me.” Maybe you’ve never heard of this place! Regardless, Muncie is home to some great public works. According to the Arts Vibrancy Index formulated by Southern Methodist University’s DataArts program, Muncie and the surrounding area ranks in the top third of more than 3,000 counties across the country¹!

That’s impressive, but I think we can do better. It’s high time to boost our community into the 90th percentile, and a giant Garfield standing astride the White River like legendary descriptions of the Colossus of Rhodes would do just that.

Everybody knows Garfield, but fewer people know that the fat cat’s creator, Jim Davis, is an East-Central Indiana guy. Born in Marion in 1945, Davis grew up on a farm near Fairmount². He graduated from Ball State before working as an assistant to Muncie cartoonist T.K. Ryan on the nationally syndicated Tumbleweeds³. Then, after a few lean years on his own, Davis created Garfield. The strip debuted across the country in 1978 and eventually became the world’s most widely syndicated comic⁴.

Regardless of where you roam, there’s a good chance Garfield has been part of your cultural vocabulary. He’s one of East-Central Indiana’s most successful exports, even if much of the world doesn’t know it. Better yet, his local heritage has been hiding in plain sight for decades: the 1988 TV special Happy Birthday, Garfield explicitly establishes Muncie as the home of Garfield, Jon, Odie, and Nermal⁵. Garfield already claims Muncie as his hometown, so it’s time for Muncie to return the favor.

The city has plenty to work with. Muncie sits just off I-69 between Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, within easy reach of people across Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan. With an annual undergrad enrollment upwards of 15,000⁶, Ball State brings scads of students, parents, alumni, and visitors into town. We have restaurants and bars, museums, trails, parks, and the White River itself. Muncie’s enormous statues like Big Jack, Paul Bunyan, and our erstwhile purple hippo already bring people like me into town just to see them! 

What the area lacks is a landmark big enough to convince millions traveling through the crossroads of America to turn a routine stop off the interstate into a destination. A 160-foot Garfield would certainly do the trick. According to the vision I iterated into ChatGPT, Garfield would span roughly 180 feet astride the White River just downstream of the Wheeling Avenue Bridge. His right foot would be anchored to the western riverbank, where visitors would enter a staircase running through his extended leg. 

From there, they’d ascend through the statue to an observation deck 160 feet above the river, that offers unobstructed 360-degree views of glorious Muncie and Delaware County. Near the Liberty Pass canal, Garfield’s opposite leg would contain an elevator or pod system to provide another route to the top. Just as Garfield himself is universally loved, the landmark must be accessible to everyone.

I understand that these AI renders from ChatGPT didn’t capture Muncie as it exists today, but I see the Garfield statue itself as only the centerpiece. The surrounding riverfront could develop into a destination district I’m provisionally calling Fat Cat Crossing. With approval from Jim Davis, Paws, Paramount Skydance, or whoever controls the brand, Garfield Gateway, Garfield Grove, or Garfield Greenway might provide more marketable alternatives. Adding “District” or “Quarter” to the end would land a fancy sense of permanence.

Whatever we call it, Garfield would give Muncie something few cities possess: an instantly recognizable landmark around which additional development could take shape. A family of seven that drives all the way from New Glarus to climb Garfield still needs somewhere to eat. They might visit MadJax, shop downtown, stop by a new Ball Jar History Center, or stay overnight at the Marriott or one of the hotels that would inevitably appear as Fat Cat Crossing gains traction.

Festivals and special events would make use of the riverfront around nearby Tuhey Park, while improved trails and public spaces would connect the district to existing infrastructure like the Fallen Heroes Bridge and White River Greenway. Restaurants, shops, and other attractions would fill in around them. Instead of treating Garfield as an isolated novelty, the goal would be to use him as the centerpiece of a broader riverfront destination that gives visitors a reason to come to Muncie and, more importantly, a reason to stick around once they get here.

In case you think my concept is just another pie-in-the-sky proposal, there’s actually serious public-art argument for thinking on this scale. The other day, I read a Ball Brothers Foundation interview with the executive director of MuncieArts. She explained that although “monuments and memorials have long been part of our landscape,” contemporary public art is about more than simply placing an object somewhere for people to look at.

Instead, it exists at “the intersection of place, community input, and artistic expression.” Murals, sculptures, gathering spaces, and interactive installations can tell the stories of neighborhoods, celebrate their history, and encourage people to experience Muncie in new ways⁷.

That sounds close to what I’m proposing. Garfield wouldn’t simply be a 160-foot statue situated along the White River in downtown Muncie. He would be tied directly to this region’s cultural history, integrated into a public gathering place, connected to trails and existing attractions, and designed to make people experience Muncie from an entirely new perspective- literally, from an observation deck atop the head of an enormous cartoon cat. Can you imagine the Fourth of July from up there? 

Great landmarks have a way of becoming inseparable from the places that build them. Indianapolis has the Soldiers and Sailors Monument. St. Louis has the Gateway Arch. New York has the Statue of Liberty. All you have to do is show someone a silhouette of any of them and they immediately know where they are. Muncie deserves that kind of visual shorthand, too! We’ve spent generations exporting pieces of our identity to the rest of the country, from Ball jars and Middletown to one of the most recognizable cartoon characters on Earth! Still, we’ve never had a landmark that packages all that peculiar Muncie-ness into something unmistakably our own.

Why shouldn’t Garfield be it? Every landmark starts as an idea, and somebody has to be ridiculous enough to suggest building it. I’m pleased to be that person. None of the buildings in these ChatGPT renders exist quite yet, but the opportunity to create them is ours. Garfield is ours. The river is waiting. It’s time to build!

Sources Cited
1 What Makes a Community Vibrant? And How Does Muncie Compare? (n.d.). MuncieArts & Culture Council [Muncie]. Web. Retrieved August 28, 2026. 
2 Jim Davis (n.d.). Premeire Speakers. Web. Retrieved August 27, 2026. 
3 Tumbleweeds (n.d.). Toonopedia. Web. Retrieved August 27, 2026.
4 Most syndicated comic strip – current (2015, July 27). Guinness World Records Limited. The Jim Pattison Group [Vancouver]. Web. Retrieved August 30, 2 026. 
5 Experience Garfield (n.d.). DestinationMuncie [Muncie]. Web. Retrieved August 30, 2026. 
6 Ball State University (n.d.). U.S. News & World Report [Washington]. Web. Retrieved August 30, 2026. 
7 Fisher, J. (2026, August 26). Ball Brothers Foundation Grantee Spotlight: Q&A with Muncie Arts Executive Director Tania Said. Wb. Retrieved August 30, 2026.