Published: July 11, 2006 12:22 pm      

Recasting Lady Liberty

LibertyFest to help pay for iconic statue's replica

EDMOND — One of Edmond’s most familiar faces will be missing this summer while the Statue of Liberty replica from Second Street and Boulevard visits a Norman foundry to be re-cast.

The aging statue was removed from its pedestal Monday by City of Edmond Parks Department officials in preparation for its trip to the foundry. The sculpture will be molded and re-cast in bronze, with the new piece of art eventually placed at the Second and Boulevard site.

The original statue will retire to the Edmond Historical Society.

Edmond’s Lady Liberty was purchased with funds raised by local Boy Scouts and erected in 1952, said Quimby Enterline, Edmond Historical Society board member and facility maintenance supervisor.

The statue is one of more than 200 placed in 39 states and U.S. territories during the “Strengthen the Arm of Liberty” effort in the late 1940s and early 1950s, observing the 40th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America.

The 8-1/2-foot replicas, made of copper sheeting, were manufactured in Chicago and sold to local scout troops for $350 each plus freight charges, according to www.americanprofile.com.

Enterline said Edmond’s star-shaped pedestal base was built by a Mr. Benton, who traveled to New York City to view the original statue and then returned to construct a scale model at the local site.

Lady Liberty was moved to Liberty Park — now Shannon Miller Park — near the Edmond Library in the mid-1980s, Enterline said, but was the victim of so much damage that it was repaired and moved back to the Second and Boulevard location in the 1990s. Now the weather has taken its toll again.

“It can’t be repaired any more,” Enterline said. “The damage has been fixed about three times, and it just can’t be repaired any more. It will go to the museum ‘as is.’”

The new bronze replica will be placed at Second and Boulevard within a few months, he said.

The Edmond Historical Society owns a collection of black-and-white photographs taken by Woody Sanders, a well-known Edmond photographer, chronicling the statue’s history. The pictures may be viewed upon request, Enterline said.

The statue project is a joint effort between the Historical Society, the Visual Arts Commission and the LibertyFest committee, said Linda Huff, LibertyFest president.

A portion of funds raised at the annual Taste of Edmond event has been saved each year toward an Oklahoma Centennial project, Huff said. The committee decided earlier this year the Lady Liberty project would be a suitable cause.

“We wanted to do something special, and since we were LibertyFest, we thought this would be appropriate,” Huff said.

The original Lady Liberty has been a familiar landmark in Edmond for nearly 55 years, and now she’ll enjoy a comfortable retirement out of the elements, with a younger, stronger replica to take her place.

“We definitely want to preserve her,” Huff said. “She’s our own precious Statue of Liberty. We’re all very excited about the project.”

(Alice Collinsworth may be reached via e-mail at acollinsworth@edmondsun.com.)