Return Visit - Gettysburg, PA
N 39° 49.842 W 077° 13.846
18S E 309104 N 4411347
Beautiful & intriguing "stand-by-me" statue. This is a HUGE Lincoln Highway roadside attraction. This is your one chance to have your picture taken with Abraham Lincoln and the Lincoln Highway. It's a Lincoln overdose!
Waymark Code: WMBGMB
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 05/19/2011
Views: 25
This is a terrific statue located inside Lincoln Square along historic Lincoln Highway. There are probably a thousand monuments, memorials and other statues in Gettysburg, but I'd wager this gets the most visits and definitely the most pictures. The statue juxtaposes a period dressed Lincoln, with hat in hand raised high above his head direclty next to a touristy, late 20th century man who appears to be asking the great emancipator for directions. It is a funny, whimsical piece which draws a lot of attention. The statue is composed of painted bronze with patina.
Parking is kinda weird, running around the edge of the rotary, parallel and sticking out like spokes. Bring quarters. The statue is in front of the old Masonic Lodge, planted in the dedicated brick pavers which line the sidewalks of the town center. This work was commissioned and dedicated in 1991 and sculpted by Seward J. Johnson, Jr. Located on the town square in front of Wills House.
In the heart of downtown Gettysburg, Pennsylvania stands a 6 foot, 4 inch tall (90 x 41 x 26 in.). 700 pound bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln. He is gesturing with his hat to a 400 pound bronze sculpture of a modern day tourist to the Wills House, the bright red brick building as if to show the tourist where the president of the United States during the Civil War stayed the night before he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address in November of 1863.
This representation of Abraham Lincoln by sculptor J. Steward Johnson was commissioned by the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania and is the most accurate statue of Lincoln ever created. J. Stewart Johnson is an American sculptor born in 1930 and famous for his painted bronze statues as well as his most dramatic work “The Awakening”.
SOURCE
From the SIRIS site:
Portrait of President Abraham Lincoln in dress of his times, standing next to a "modern" male tourist, dressed in slacks, pull over sweater and tennis shoes. The tourist holds a copy of the Gettysburg Address in his hands and looks out towards the Wills House. Lincoln looks down at the Gettysburg Address, and holds his hat in his outstretched proper left arm.
Plaque on ground in front of sculpture reads: Return Visit/By J. Seward Johnson Jr./Sited by Sculpture Placement, Washington, D.C. A plaque on the ground to the rear of the sculpture reads: Commissioned by the Lincoln Fellowship/of Pennsylvania/1991/Major donors/Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Gettysburg College,/The Gettysburg National Bank, Adams County National Bank/The Borough of Gettysburg, people of Pennsylvania/and of the United States.