Sculptures give Southern Oregon town character

CRESCENT, Ore. — A woodsman with a face on both sides of his head.

A welcoming bear.

Bigfoot with a brew.

And one gruff-growling, mean-looking bear, standing tall, snarling and threatening with one front paw and holding a big-eyed fish in his other.

Welcome to Crescent.

Crescent is a small incorporated Klamath County community about 90 miles north of Klamath Falls. Originally named Odell in 1901, it was changed to Crescent in 1907 in recognition of Crescent Lake 15 miles west in the Cascades.

It was at Odell-Crescent that the proposed junction of the north-south and east-west railroads was planned to be located. At the time, when people thought the community would be a railroad junction, homesteads sold quickly, according to letters from Helen Helfrich, an author of the “Klamath Echoes” book series.

Crescent’s claim to fame is its unusual sculptures that front three businesses.

The Woodsman Country Lodge, which is closed for the winter and will reopen in May, features a logger slamming his ax in a log. His two-faced head points both north and south, so that it’s visible face-forward from either direction.

He says the bear is good for business, and suspects the Woodsman’s woodsman and Bigfoot are good for enticing people who do more than stop and take photos.

“They come from all over the place — Canada, Europe, all over the U.S. — and take pictures of it,” Defoe says of the fish-holding bear. “They’ve never seen anything like it. They come in the store. It works.”