Richard L. Graves, known as the owner of the Nugget Casino Resort in Sparks, Nevada commissioned artist Frank Polk to create a solid gold statue of a rooster for display in a restaurant that he was having built, the Golden Rooster Room, featuring fried chicken supposedly made using Colonel Sanders' original recipe.

In July 1960, the statue was confiscated by the federal government,[2] who deemed it to be for the purpose of advertising, rather than an artwork, thus violating the Gold Reserve Act.

[4] On March 26, 1962, in Carson City, the case (United States of America v. One Solid Gold Object in Form of a Rooster) went to trial before Judge Sherrill Halbert.

After listening to expert testimony, the jury found him not guilty after a days deliberations and that the statue was an artwork, making it exempt from the act.

The statue was on display until 1986 when the Golden Rooster Room (under the name El Gallo de Oro[9]) was closed for renovations to accommodate an expansion of Trader Dick's.