Jim Reinders’ memorial to his father, the Carhenge, cost about $10,000 and took a family reunion to build, according to the Alliance Times-Herald.
Reinders was a petroleum engineer who had worked in England and gotten to know Stonehenge. After his father died in 1982, he wanted to honor him with a Stonehenge of his own on the family’s land in Nebraska. The state had a shortage of suitable stone, so he turned to cars. “Cars are more available in this area and they are shaped similar to the stones in England,” Reinders said, per the Alliance Times-Herald. The wheels of the cars greatly simplified logistics, Alliance visitors bureau head Kevin Howard told NPR.
In the summer of 1987, about 35 relatives showed up for a family reunion with old cars. They finished the job in about a week. “Jim says it took a lot of blood, sweat and beers,” Howard told NPR.
The result is 39 cars, one for each stone at Stonehenge, arranged in a circle about 96 feet across and sprayed gray. Cars planted on end rise 15 to 17 feet, according to Roadtrippers. The dedication on the summer solstice included speeches, poetry and a play.
Not everyone in town was sold by this idea, though. “There were a lot of naysayers,” Reinders’ nephew, Dan Reinders, told the Plainsman. “It’s gotten to be so much more than he ever planned.”
It has also had a close call. In 2011, the nonprofit Friends of Carhenge listed the site for $300,000 because it lacked the money to expand, Fox News reported. In 2013, it was donated to the city of Alliance, per the Alliance Times-Herald.
Then, in Aug. 21, 2017, Alliance sat in the path of totality, the narrow shadow track on Earth’s surface where the Moon completely blocks the Sun during a total solar eclipse. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts planned to watch from Carhenge, the Associated Press reported. An estimated 4,000 people joined him, and Reinders was there too. The town has since been included in a guide to the best places to watch the Great American Eclipse.
Jim Reinders died in October 2021 at the age of 94. His daughter, Janice McArdle, remembered that day fondly. “Carhenge was a wonderful place to watch the eclipse,” she said, memorializing his father the same way Jim did for his with the Carhenge.
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