Entry No. 20 — the Seattle file — filed under: roadside-oddity
Hat 'n' Boots at Oxbow Park
A 44-foot-wide cowboy hat and two 22-foot cowboy boots, once billed as the largest of their kind in America, sit incongruously in a small Georgetown park. They started life in 1954 as a Western-themed Texaco gas station, where the office hid under the hat and the two boots held the restrooms. After the station was abandoned, the city moved the rotting structures to Oxbow Park in 2003 and finished restoring them in 2010.
The story
In 1954, someone decided the most logical place for the country's largest cowboy gear was an industrial pocket of Seattle. The 44-foot-wide brim of a massive orange hat housed the office of a Western-themed Texaco gas station, while drivers used restrooms hidden inside a pair of 22-foot turquoise cowboy boots. It was roadside spectacle at its most unapologetic, designed to pull highway traffic off the asphalt with pure mid-century weirdness.
When the pumps eventually went cold, rain and wood-rot did what they always do in the Pacific Northwest. By the end of the century, the decaying hat and boots looked ready for a landfill. Instead, neighborhood advocates fought for their survival, persuading the city to relocate the rotting relics to Georgetown's newly carved-out Oxbow Park in 2003. A multi-year restoration project finally wrapped up in 2010, saving the plaster-and-beam structures from total collapse.
Today, the preserved giant gear sits on a patch of lawn framed by industrial yards and brick storefronts. You didn't hear it from us, but it's one of the few surviving pieces of 1950s programmatic architecture in the state—a monument to an era when gas stations felt compelled to hide their offices inside oversized headwear.
What it's like
Expect a compact, sleepy park tucked into industrial Georgetown where a pair of towering blue boots and a wide orange hat dwarf the surrounding trees. There are no ticket booths, lines, or velvet ropes—just open grass, a nearby playground, and shade cast by two-story footwear. Grab a sandwich, park along the curb on Carleton Ave S, and take twenty minutes to walk around the perimeter before exploring Georgetown's surrounding antique shops.
The move: Pack a picnic and eat it in the shade of a giant cowboy boot in Oxbow Park, then wander Georgetown's antique shops.
- 📍 Georgetown, Seattle
- 💸 Free
- ⚡ Up for anything
- 🌗 Outdoors
Where: Oxbow Park, Carleton Ave S & S Bailey St, Seattle, WA 98108
Hours: Added 2026-06-24 — confirm current hours before you go.
Pair it with
- Georgetown Pizza & Arcade — Pair giant 1950s roadside Americana with slice-shop pizza and around 25 pinball machines just a half-mile down the street.
- Western Neon School of Art — Follow up vintage roadside signage history with a look at custom neon glass-bending two miles north in SoDo.
- Lawless Forge — Trade admiring salvaged 1950s timber and plaster for hammering hot steel at a beginner-friendly blacksmith shop under two miles away.
Good to know
How much does it cost to visit?
Nothing. Oxbow Park is a free public city park open daily from dawn to dusk.
Can you go inside the hat or boots?
No. The structures are sealed to protect them from weather and vandalism, so you cannot step inside the former gas station office or boot restrooms.
What were the hat and boots originally built for?
They opened in 1954 as a Western-themed Texaco gas station. The hat served as the station manager's office, and the two boots contained the customer restrooms.
Plan a visit & invite your people →
Further reading: Wikipedia · seattletimes.com · Roadside America · Atlas Obscura · Reddit
last checked: 2026-06-24