Finding Hobo Joe: A Road Trip Story

As a road tripper, I’ve enjoyed driving around the country looking for quirky and off-beat roadside attractions. It’s kind of a popular thing in the road trip community, and it gives us road trippers a fun break from driving long distances.

A few summers ago, we were off on our first west coast road trip adventure. We chose to stopover in Arizona for a few days before heading home through Nevada. One of the popular roadside attractions at the time was the Hobo Joe statue in Arizona. There was lots of talk online within the road trip community about this statue, and lots of people visiting it. We weren’t really sure what the hype was all about, so we figured we would check it out for ourselves.

We spent a good two hours driving back and forth in Buckeye, Arizona looking for this statue. We thought we knew where it was located, but just couldn’t find it.

Fast forward three years and this roadside attraction has now made it on to our “must find” road trip list. We were fortunate enough to travel down to Arizona a few months ago, and made it our mission to find this silly statue. It had officially become an unsolved quest for us that had to be completed.

With all the buzz online the past few years about the statue, we were finally able to find better directions for the statue. Tucked away down a side street, and behind a large tree was this massive statue we’d been searching for. We were delighted to find this silly statue, and like many of our road trip adventures, it’s finally become a funny road trip story for us.

The story behind the Hobo Joe statue:

From what I’ve read online, the 27-foot-tall statue used to stand outside of each Hobo Joe restaurant. The statues were made by Marvin Ransdell in memory of a friend who was a traveling hobo. There is only one confirmed Hobo Joe statue that remains, and it stands outside of the original Hobo Joe restaurant. The location has since been transformed into a meat plant, but the statue still stands in its original spot.

It seems the employees of the meat plant are used to people stopping in to see the statue. When we arrived, we parked in the parking lot and got out to take some pictures with the statue. Several employees in the parking lot politely laughed and carried on with their day.

Location:

Buckeye Meats Co.
1045 E. Monroe Ave, Buckeye, AZ

What’s your favorite roadside attraction? Leave your comment below.