The hope was that restoration of the iconic, endangered, 270-ton statue would be completed a year ago.
But harsh weather, scheduling conflicts and greater-than-anticipated damage to the structure, among other issues, pushed back work on the Eternal Indian. The concrete figure designed by renowned sculptor Lorado Taft draws upward of 400,000 visitors a year to its site on the Rock River bluffs in Lowden State Park.
Now the project is back on track. Work, in the form of steam-cleaning and testing of material to fill cracks and remove calcium deposits, began in late June and comes at a crucial time. Landmarks Illinois in April placed the Eternal Indian, also known as the Black Hawk statue, on its list of the state’s most endangered historic places.
“We’re making progress and we’re happy that they finally started to get going,” said Frank Rausa, of Sterling. About eight years ago, he and his wife, Charron, sparked the campaign to restore the statue, which turned 104 years old this month, after they’d read a newspaper story about the loss of state funding to rehab it.
Located about 100 miles west of Chicago, the statue was Taft’s homage to Native Americans in the region. Although it looks nothing like the famed Black Hawk, a martyred figure who led his people during the Black Hawk War of 1832 in the region, local residents refer to it by his name. Various historical sources report that the statue is a composite of Native American men and that its face is modeled after Taft’s friend writer Hamlin Garland.
The Rausas’ fundraising effort tapped into the deep affection people in the area have for the statue. As of early last week, Frank Rausa said, the couple’s Friends of the Black Hawk Statue Committee had raised about $848,000, mostly through a state grant and private foundation gifts that include a donation from the Chicago Blackhawks and contributions from foundations in Janesville, Wis., and Sterling. About $142,000 of that has been spent on engineering studies and scaffolding.
Piecemeal repairs over the years preserved the statue reasonably well until about 2009, engineers said, when time and the elements caused severe deterioration at the figure’s elbows, midsection and along one side.
After the steam-cleaning, the restoration crew will remove the most damaged areas of the surface concrete and make a detailed determination of structural damage to the statue.
That step will yield a more specific plan for the work needed, associated costs and a construction timetable, project conservator Andrzej Dajnowski said at the site Friday.
He said the restoration — he preferred the word conservation — should be complete “sometime in the middle or end of next year,” but much depends on what is revealed after the damaged areas are removed. The restoration is complicated by previous repairs in which epoxy was used to fill cracks. That material blocked water from escaping, which led to deterioration in deeper areas of the structure, he said.
“Essentially, right now, we are really taking baby steps,” said Dajnowski, who has led restorations of other Taft statues, including Alma Mater at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Every project that I take on usually looks easy before we start working on it.”
When he gets into the details and takes a look at interiors of the structures, the project usually gets more difficult, he said.
“I didn’t expect anything easy here,” he added. But, he said, “I like the challenge because it makes my life more interesting.”
Frank Rausa, 73, said he is hopeful the restored statue will be unveiled July 1, 2016, the 105th anniversary of its dedication. The lead engineer on the project, Amy Lamb Woods, declined to comment on a timetable.
Rausa said he is confident his group has raised enough money to pay for the restoration. His greater concern is acquiring additional money for restoring the statue’s base, landscaping around the statue, making the area accessible for people with disabilities and establishing an endowment for maintenance.
Most important of all to him is his wife’s health. Charron Rausa, 79, was diagnosed in December with stage 4 lung cancer. But her treatments have gone well and her health has improved in recent weeks, she said.
Last week, she and her husband visited the statue. They found it shrouded in scaffolding and green protective mesh.
Still, visitors trickled by, and Charron Rausa struck up conversations with several of them, including Terry and Nancy Spirek, of Brookfield, their daughter Laurie Rodgers and 4-year-old granddaughter Layla Rodgers. They’d been camping about 10 miles north in Byron when Terry Spirek rallied the family for a trip to see the statue.
“I haven’t been here since I was a little kid,” said Spirek, 66. “I didn’t know how big it was but back then; it was the biggest thing I’d seen. I was enamored.”
He said he was disappointed that his group was unable to see the statue, but he was buoyed at being able to get what he considered relatively rare construction photos. He said he will return with his family to view the finished product.
Charron Rausa said she had hoped the restoration would have been completed this year. “But if not,” she said, “I’m getting better all the time and I will be here next year. I guarantee you.”
Rausa no longer asks for large sums of money from people for the restoration, she said. All she asks from them is a dollar and a prayer.
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