Lady Liberty - South Dakota Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

The statue was dedicated on Sunday evening, August 1, 1943. The statue, which had previously been owned by Sioux Falls pioneer Charles A. Sells, was presented to Park Board chairman R. B. Meldrum during the ceremonies. The Sioux Falls Garden Club raised the money to purchase the statue. The statue was placed at the South end of the sunken garden on a rock pedestal.
The old wooden Statue of Liberty located at the South end of the sunken garden had been vandalized in the 1960s and removed by the City. But, the neighbors remembered it as a focal point for the park, and wanted a new one put back in the park. The original base for the statue was still in place, but it looked out of place with nothing on it. The Mayor of Sioux Falls, Gary Hanson, was a major backer of the project, and helped to secure funding for the statue. In 2001, the City contracted with a firm in St. Paul, Minnesota, called Tivoli-Too to create a new replica of the statue. They hired a local sculptor named Serguei Iourov, who had immigrated to the United States from St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1997. It seems ironic to think that a Russian immigrant created one of the symbols of America and of freedom, especially since he had recently been living in a country ruled by a Communist regime. On July 22, 2002, almost 59 years since the first statue appeared in the park, the new bronze replica of the Statue of Liberty was dedicated and installed at the South end of the sunken garden.

Marker Name: Lady Liberty Marker Type: City Marker Text: Lady Liberty exact replica, just reduced in size.

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