Pa. honors its heritage with 'Miles of Mules'

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) -- Mules helped build the Pennsylvania economy by pulling countless barges of coal on the Delaware and Lehigh canals. Now, officials at the Delaware & amp; Lehigh National Heritage Corridor Commission want to remind people of the mule's important work.
The way they've chosen to do it is a public art project called "Miles of Mules."
Life-sized mule statues were given to 150 people to decorate. One artist dressed his mule like Elvis, complete with sideburns, and others have been adorned with bottle caps, painted daisies -- you name it.
"The idea is to make art more accessible and give it a playful spin," says Elisabeth Flynn of the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pa., one of the commission's Miles of Mules partners.
Switzerland is often credited with the world's first public art display involving animal figures, an 800-cow project in Zurich in 1998. A year later Chicago followed with "Cows on Parade" -- said to have generated $200 million in tourism revenues --and New York followed suit with cows in 2000. New Mexico had a "Trail of Painted Ponies" and Philadelphia's Main Line displayed decorated dogs.