Chickasha Leg Lamp installed at Rock Island Depot

Jessica Lane, The Express-Star, Chickasha, Okla.
·2 min read

Sep. 7—It was a tense ten minutes as the nearly giant, fiberglass leg found its footing.

On Tuesday, the leg of the Chickasha Leg Lamp was erected over a steel beam, which holds the leg atop a platform at the Rock Island Depot.

The Chickasha Leg Lamp was built by Midwest Cooling Towers of Chickasha. Later this month, the lamp shade will be added and the whole structure will be primed and painted to replicate the leg lamp from "A Christmas Story."

The lamp shade will resemble a product Midwest Cooling Towers already makes.

"Midwest Cooling Towers is known for its fan stack in the cooling tower industry," Manish Puri, Manufacturing and Project Lead at Midwest Cooling Towers, said.

"When we saw the shade, we thought 'It looks like a fan stack.' So we are able to use the same principals we use in a fan stack for a shade and a similar kind of principal for the leg as well."

Jim Cowan, Chickasha Economic Director, said the Chickasha Community Foundation and EDC were glad to discover a local company to carry out the unique project.

Made of thick fiberglass and bolted down, the Chickasha Leg Lamp is more durable than its predecessor. The inflatable Chickasha Leg Lamp caught national and international attention in November 2020 as well as awards from the Oklahoma Travel Association.

After the permanent Chickasha Leg Lamp has been fully installed, crews will work on cleaning up the surrounding area. The whole project is on the right timeline for the Festival of Light's 30th Anniversary. December at the Depot will also return in 2022 with a giant Christmas tree, more decorations and lighting, bathrooms and a refreshment area, Cowan said.

A celebration will be held on Nov. 5 to commemorate the completion of the project. More details to come.

The Chickasha Leg Lamp is part of Phase 1 of Chickasha's Downtown Park Project. The Chickasha Community Foundation raised $1.4 million in private funds for the first phase. The park will be maintained through private donations from local citizens and businesses, Cowan said.