Woodpecker Tower Park water tower

A six-foot wooden woodpecker was fixed to the side of a water tower in Peoria Heights, Illinois, as of the village's 2023 report and a late-2024 photo blog. The sculpture weighs about 300 pounds and is attached to the side of the observation and water tower in Tower Park at a height of about 108 feet, according to the village in 2023.

A Peoria Magazine article (2017, updated 2022) says the cedar carving was made by Canadian chainsaw artist Henry Stadlbauer and ordered for the tower by philanthropist Bill Rutherford, whose Forest Park Foundation helped finance the project. The village wrote in 2023 that the tower's architect and its main benefactor disagreed about including the woodpecker, and that the benefactor prevailed, and that 55 years after the tower was built, in 1968, it remained a community symbol. The village described it as "legendary and iconic", and in May 2023 its board approved a $7,650 contract to repaint it.