Loveland, Ohio, wants to give its most famous unconfirmed resident a permanent bronze perch at Nisbet Park. City leaders have launched a campaign to add a sculpture honoring the Loveland Frogman, the amphibious cryptid that has haunted local lore for decades, as part of a celebration tied to the city's 150th anniversary.
The campaign would add a bronze sculpture inspired by Loveland's longtime connection to the elusive Frogman, according to WKRC. The station reports that Loveland wants to bring an iconic ode to the city's cryptid history to the park, with the piece intended to celebrate the city's 150th anniversary. As of now, the sculpture does not have a name, and the community is being invited to help bring the project to life.
A Legend Rooted in Local Sightings
The Frogman's origin story stretches back seven decades. The first recorded sighting of the creature was reported in 1955, and the legend resurfaced decades later when two local police officers reported spotting something similar on separate occasions in the 1970s, according to Ideastream Public Media. One of those reports has a precise date attached to it: the same outlet's reporting partner, Cincinnati alt-weekly Citybeat, notes that on March 3, 1972, a Loveland police officer claimed to have seen a 4-foot-tall frog walking upright.
The legend has proven durable well into the smartphone era. Most recently, in 2016, a couple was playing Pokémon GO when they reported discovering a Frogman-esque figure, per the same Ideastream account. That string of sightings across generations has helped cement the creature's place in Loveland's identity, to the point that the city has embraced the Frogman as its official mascot, as Citybeat has reported.
Festivals Have Already Tested the Frogman's Draw
Loveland has already leaned into its cryptid celebrity through recurring festivals, though the record on exactly when that tradition started is muddled. Citybeat reports that a Loveland resident it identifies as Craig started the first annual Frogman Festival in 2023, while Ideastream describes an inaugural Return of the Frogman festival held the following weekend in October 2024, which organizers said would return every leap year. Whichever count is the true first, Citybeat notes the event has gotten bigger every year since it began.
Loveland Would Join a Small Club of Cryptid Towns
If the statue comes together, Loveland would be following a path other cryptid-famous towns have already paved. Point Pleasant, West Virginia, has built its own tourism identity around a 12-foot-tall polished steel Mothman statue in its downtown area, according to Atlas Obscura, and the Mothman Museum promotes additional stainless steel statues and river murals depicting the town's history. Farther afield, National Geographic has reported that a government tourism campaign made the Yeti a centerpiece of its marketing, placing dozens of Yeti statues at key attractions to draw cryptid-curious travelers.
For now, Loveland's Frogman sculpture remains a work in progress rather than a finished landmark. WKRC's reporting makes clear the piece has no name yet and that city leaders are counting on residents to help shape what comes next at Nisbet Park, a fitting next chapter for a legend that has already survived police reports, a smartphone game and at least one very confused Pokémon hunter.
