in 1990, the city of Seattle was fed up with the typical problem of paying for the clean up of mattresses, bottles, and crack pipes found under the Fremont bridge, a genius realized (outside of the box thinking) that maybe a piece of public art could help deal with that problem.

So they sponsored a competition.

“They” is the Fremont Arts Council. The troll design went up against several others, including a giant chair, and won the public vote at the Fremont Fair. The design was, in fact, based on the children’s story of the three Billy goats gruff and the troll under the bridge"

It only took a few months to build the troll, who is clutching an actual VW Beetle, and it was installed on Halloween

“Black Duck Motors had a VW that had been in a front end wreck, and we got the idea of making it into a time capsule and school kids from all over Seattle came and brought stuff to put in there. 

There are ashes of a friend in there. A friend of ours who died during the construction. We got a little piece of her and we put it in there. Sandy Smith, she loved the project, she didn’t get to see the end of it."

The eye is a hub cap, and the bug had a California license plate to humorously imply that Californians weren't welcome in Seattle

Michael Falcone made a documentary called Hall of Giants about it. 

https://mynorthwest.com/81883/the-fremont-troll-is-the-star-of-a-new-documentary/

https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/Happy-birthday-Fremont-Troll-12320560.php