Union City has acquired a new kind of watchman — seven of them, in fact — standing silent guard along Main Street like figures stepped out of a half‑remembered dream. These life‑sized sentries, carved by local chainsaw artist Blain Blakeslee and funded through two $10,000 grants, feel less like public art and more like revenants of the town’s past: a milkman paused mid‑delivery, a barrel maker caught in the rhythm of his trade, a fisherman forever waiting for the tug on his line. Even the iconic VJ Day kiss has been resurrected in white pine, the couple locked in their jubilant embrace just off East High Street, as if time itself forgot to carry them forward.

Together, these figures form a kind of open‑air folklore trail — a whimsical, slightly uncanny extension of Union City’s ongoing downtown revitalization. From the Moose Lodge to the new gazebo across from the library, the carvings mark a path through the town’s layered history, connecting turn‑of‑the‑century storefronts with newer commercial stretches. Some pieces were coaxed from a single log; others are assembled with screws and stubborn imagination. All of them stand as guardians of memory, inviting passersby to slow down, look twice, and wonder what other stories might be hiding in the grain.