Giganticus Headicus at Antares Point

Giganticus Headicus is green and stands 14 feet tall beside Route 66 at Antares Point, about 18 miles north of Interstate 40 in Kingman, between Valley Vista and Hackberry at mile marker 75. Local artist Gregg Arnold modeled the head on the stone monoliths of Easter Island. He built it of metal and wood, chicken wire, Styrofoam and cement, and spiked the whole structure into the ground. The Historic Route 66 Association of Arizona dates it to 2004. The Kingman tourism office says Arnold worked on it through 2003 and 2004.

The property sits on what both bodies call the longest continuous curve on a U.S. highway, about two miles of it. Past the road the desert runs out toward the Grand Wash Cliffs and the Peacock Mountains. Behind the head stands a building with a steep roof and an intricate triangular sign. Its main A-frame now holds the Antares Point Visitor Center and Gift Shop, where Arnold’s other pieces stand around the grounds. The shop has sold T-shirts, stickers and Arnold’s metalwork. The Arizona association notes that the shop keeps limited hours and that the artwork outside is worth a stop even when the doors are shut.

The Guardian of Route 66

The newest of the large pieces is a 16-foot woman who waves an American flag and holds up a Route 66 shield. According to the center’s own 2021 description, she is made of scrap metal, camels, cars, motorcycles, donkeys, Route 66 shields, peace signs and kokopellis, “and of course a little Giganticus Headicus.” Her eyes are built as a “follow me” optical illusion. The center wrote that the idea behind her was the rebirth it saw up and down Route 66, “especially in Kingman,” and that “pieces of the past can be reshaped into the fabric of the future.”

Trailer court, motel and Shell station

The site has had several names. The Associated Press in 2013 called it the former Kozy Korner trailer park. Route 66 News places Antares Point at the former Kozy Corner Trailer Court and the Ranchero Motel. In the Arizona association’s account, the building was the Ranchero Motel, and in 1965 it held a restaurant, a bar, a Shell gas station and rooms for travelers. The center’s 2021 press release gives a different origin: it says the place was first built as a Shell gas station, restaurant and land sales office. Arnold later bought the property. The same release says only that he purchased it 20 years before and gives no year.

A welder reads Warhol

Arnold is a certified welder by trade. He told the Associated Press in 2013 that “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” published after Warhol’s death in 1987, gave him the idea for the place. “The creativity just flew there,” he said. “I always wanted a place like that and I thought, ‘What better place than Route 66?’ I want this for artists, painters, poets, whatever their outlet is.” He paints as well as sculpts, though by his own account the land came first. “There’s a great energy here,” he said. “I never drew a picture. I never did sculpting until I came here.”

By that spring the head had stood about nine years. Other pieces kept it company. Giant robotic ants “crawled” on the outside walls, and a windmill-type creation used a chair and table from the 1950s for its blades. A drum on the property warned that it held baby rattlers, and visitors who looked inside found rattles for babies rather than young rattlesnakes. Arnold said the head had appeared in several television commercials and had been named one of the 60 most interesting places to visit along Route 66.

At that time he was remodeling the A-frame that had once housed the bar and restaurant. He wanted to give motorists a reason to stop for a bite to eat and a souvenir, including miniature copies of the head. He also wanted artists to come and work in the back rooms. He had no timeline. “I just do as much as I can in a day,” he said. “I want to enhance the Route 66 experience and put blood back into the heart of Route 66.”

Unveiling day, November 2021

The remodel took another turn. In 2016 Grand Canyon Caverns, about 40 miles to the east, announced that it was leasing the property to open a Route 66 visitor center there. The caverns gave up the lease in 2019. In 2020, during the COVID-19 shutdowns, Arnold cleaned up the grounds and remodeled the A-frame himself. Antares Point held a soft opening on Easter weekend of 2021.

That fall Arnold announced a new statue but kept its name and appearance secret. On Saturday, November 6, 2021, shortly after noon and with more than 100 people watching, he took the cover off the Guardian of Route 66. The unveiling gala served as the grand opening of the visitor center and gift shop. A car show held with it drew 58 entries and raised more than $900 for a local nonprofit, Feral Cat Warriors. On December 18 of that year, Route 66 historian Jim Hinckley signed books at the center while the shop served its new homemade soups with hot coffee.

On September 17, 2026, the center’s page posted that the NBC show The Great American Journey had come to film “Giganticus Headicus and me.”