Black Hawk Statue
The Black Hawk Statue, officially known as The Eternal Indian, was created by Lorado Taft and John G. Prasuhn, beginning in 1908. Taft at first created smaller studies of what would become the statue. The statue itself was dedicated in 1911, Taft noted at the dedication that the statue seemed to have grown out of the ground. It stands on the ground that was once home to the Eagle's Nest Art Colony, which Taft founded in 1898. The statue stands 125 feet (38 m) above the Rock River, though its height only accounts for 48 feet (15 m) of that. Black Hawk weighs 536,770 pounds (243.47 t) and is said to be the second largest concrete monolithic statue in the world. Taft said the statue was inspired by the Sac leader Black Hawk, although it is not a likeness of the chief. Though never publicized at the time of construction, when funds were exhausted the park's namesake, Frank Lowden had stepped in to ensure the completion of Black Hawk was financially possible.
Read more about this topic: Lowden State Park
Famous quotes containing the words black, hawk and/or statue:
“Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. On the farm the weather was the great fact, and men’s affairs went on underneath it, as the streams creep under the ice. But in Black Hawk the scene of human life was spread out shrunken and pinched, frozen down to the bare stalk.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Hold hard, my county darlings, for a hawk descends,
Golden Glamorgan straightens, to the falling birds.
Your sport is summer as the spring runs angrily.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Only he who can view his own past as an abortion sprung from compulsion and need can use it to full advantage in the present. For what one has lived is at best comparable to a beautiful statue which has had all its limbs knocked off in transit, and now yields nothing but the precious block out of which the image of one’s future must be hewn.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)