Turkey statue (Route 11)

SAH Archipedia, drawing on the 2015 guide Buildings of Virginia, describes Rockingham County’s turkey statues on U.S. Route 11, the old Valley Turnpike. It dates the sculpture to 1955 and credits Norwood Bosserman, Gerald Harris and Carl A. Roseberg, describing a bronze turkey on a stone pedestal at the southern end of the county and an identical one near the northern border, both cast by Roman Bronze Works of New York. The Virginia Association of Counties wrote in 2017 that the statues were erected in the 1950s and that the county adopted the nickname “Turkey Capital of the World” in that decade, and it quoted Hobey Bauhan: “The modern turkey industry has its roots in Rockingham County.” SAH Archipedia credits local farmer Charles Wampler with pioneering the commercial industry in the late 1920s. In March 2024 an entry on Southern Adventist University’s arboretum site recorded the southern statue at Weyers Cave and noted the other at Timberville.