John Deere Pond

In 1989, dairy farmers William and Harold Mann decided to build a pond on their shared wetland area of Vashon Island, Washington. In the shape of a deer.

William created a giant grid with string and, in the dead of winter, meticulously plotted the outline of John Deere’s classic logo. Determined to work even after the weather turned on him, and after having already lost two pairs of boots to the endeavor, he laid the final cinderblocks of the pond’s outline wearing snowshoe-like contraptions he created to prevent his feet from sinking in the mud.

Some of their closest neighbors didn’t even know about the deer-shaped pond for years after it was built -or even after they started lighting it up for Christmas. The visiting news reporters gave them a clue. Redditor NoLegsOleg posted the picture above that a friend took on a recent flyover. You can also see the pond on Google Maps.


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Yay! Always cool to see something on Mental Floss relating to my home town. I grew up on Vashon Island - - my friends and I noticed this pond not long after they put it in. You can see it from the nearby road (the one the car is on toward the bottom of the picture above, as the road kind of goes up a hill) - - it is kind of foreshortened from that angle, but you can still make out what it is. Interesting note for Mental Floss/internet junkies - - this pond is walking distance (probably a couple of miles) from the internet-famous "bicycle tree" where the old baloon-tire bicycle is grown into the crotch of a tree. Go Vashon!
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