Carhenge, Replica of World Heritage Site

Carhenge

CARHENGE, REPLICA OF A WORLD HERITAGE SITE
From A Shunpiker's Journal�
By Steve Purdy
TheAutoChannel Detroit Bureau

Northwest Nebraska is not usually known for artistic phenomena. Imagine our surprise as we passed Barea Creek on northbound Highway 87, just northeast of Alliance, where we happened upon this – what should we call it – a “structure?” – A 96-foot circle of old cars stuck into the ground, right in the middle of nowhere – a modernist replica of Brittan’s historic Stonehenge. It’s called Carhenge.

The original Stonehenge was built by the Druids before there was dirt. But this replica in the western prairie is made entirely of old cars. They’re stuck into the ground, they’re upright, they’re accurately stacked and positioned just like the Druad masterpiece half a world away.

We have to get the story on this!

It seems an old farmer lived on, and farmed, this piece of high prairie until he died in 1982. His son, Jim Rainders, a well-known experimental artist had spent time in England and had studied Stonehenge. He longed to duplicate it in some way on a full scale. At his father’s funeral he cooked up a plan with a bunch of relatives to meet back at the farm five years hence and do this job as a memorial to his late father. About 37 Rainders relatives gathered in 1987 and built this magnificent edifice.

They call it, appropriately, Carhenge. Three circles of cars with three standing trilithons within the circle, a heel stone, a slaughter stone, and two station stones complete with the “Aubrey circle,” a series of holes discovered by Sir John Aubrey at Stonehenge, that were originally used for wooden posts. Aubrey, by the way, was the first Brit to see Stonehenge as an ancient Druid temple.

When we say “stones,” we really mean cars. It took 38 automobiles to populate this mechanical circle. I see a couple of Cadillacs, an old Jeep pickup, an old Dodge sedan, . . . we’ll try to identify them all on our next visit.

Some cars are planted vertically about five feet deep into the Nebraska dirt tail first. Others are stacked on top and welded into place. Then everything is painted stone gray. All, of course, positioned to perfectly replicate the positions of the car-sized stones at the original Stonehenge. The honored “heel stone” is a 1962 Cadillac, a long wide luxury sedan with modest fins.

This magnificent monument was dedicated on the summer solstice in 1987 at a ceremony featuring a play written by the family along with stories, songs and some home-grown poetry.

Carhenge is preserved and maintained by a dedicated group of local folks known as the Friends of Carhenge. It has become a surprisingly popular tourist draw for this otherwise nondescript corner of Nebraska.

The Friends of Carhenge are recruiting other significant automotive sculptures for the site. Geoff Sandhurst, a 29-year-old Canadian sculptor has created a piece called “Spawning Salmon” and Jim Reinders has added another piece of his called “Ford Seasons,” depicting seasonal elements in the life of prairie wheat, made out of five Ford automobiles.

Carhenge has not been missed by Hollywood either. Film and television crews have frequented the site for various purposes. Nissan even filmed a commercial there.

Next time you’re in Northwest Nebraska, check out Carhenge in Alliance and see how many cars you can identify.