Dude Totally Re-Creates San Francisco With Toothpicks

Photo: Robyn Twomey

In 1977, Scott Weaver decided to replicate the Golden Gate Bridge with toothpicks and Elmer’s glue. When the 17-year-old finished that structure, he just kept going. What started as a pastime became an all-consuming quest to, as he puts it, “blow people’s minds” with toothpicks. Mission accomplished.
The Rohnert Park, California, resident, a surfer and competitive freestyle Frisbee player — who also likes to transform his house into a castle for Christmas — has poured 3,000 hours into his 9-foot-tall, 20-pound simulacrum of San Francisco. Ripley’s Believe It or Not offered Weaver $40,000 for his 100,000-toothpick town, but he turned it down without hesitation. “Other than my wife and my son, this is the most important thing in my life,” he says. “I just regret that my mother wasn’t able to see it while she was alive.”
Click on the thumbnails below for a guided tour of Weaver’s creation.



Scott Weaver toiled for 3,000 hours and brandished some 100,000 toothpicks to build a 9-foot-tall, 20-pound simulacrum of San Francisco. Ouch!
Video: Wired.com Video Team

Amazing San Francisco sculpture made of toothpicks

Bay Bridge

Fullsai

Dragon

Painted Ladies

Palace of Fine Arts

Palace of Fine Arts and Painted Ladies

Ferry Building

Coit Tower

Alcatraz

Sky Banner

Background

Palace of Fine Arts