On a stretch of North Dakota highway where golden fields meet an endless prairie sky, a giant metal knight stands guard over a castle, protecting it from a fire-breathing dragon. It sounds like something out of a fairy tale, but in Regent these giant figures are part of a very real roadside attraction that grew from one man’s desire to put a fading hometown on the map. For more than 30 years, former teacher and school principal Gary Greff has been using scrap metal to create gigantic works of art along the Enchanted Highway, one of the more unusual attractions in southwestern North Dakota. After a career in education, Greff returned to his hometown of Regent in 1989. He didn’t go down the expected path. Instead, he focused on a crazy idea: Using giant sculptures to draw travelers off Interstate 94 and into his struggling community. He'd never welded before. He learned the skill from local farmers, and his first major work, the Tin Family, was installed two years later in 1991. The concept was simple, but ambitious: travelers could be persuaded to make a detour for something truly exceptional, while they might just drive past a typical small town. The experiment finally blossomed into the Enchanted Highway, a 32-mile stretch from Exit 72 on I-94 to Regent with giant scrap-metal sculptures along the way.
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