Pastimes: Longmont’s Lady Liberty

Anne Dyni Pastimes

W hen Longmont established its Art in Public Places program in 1989, it objective was to fund public art. Today, the city’s Web site displays fifty of these commissioned pieces, many of which are found in parks and along bike trails.

Conspicuously missing, however, is one of Longmont’s earlier monuments, the Miss Liberty statue in Roosevelt Park.
Installed in 1950, this diminutive replica of Bartholdi’s original Statue of Liberty still stands near the intersection of Coffman Street and Longs Peak Avenue. What is her story?

Longmont's Miss Liberty was moved a short distance from her original site and remounted on a pedestal of local sandstone. Anne Dyni, Courtesy photo

In the late 1940s, the Boy Scouts of America celebrated their 40th Anniversary with the theme “Strengthen the Arm of Liberty.” Jack Whitaker, then commissioner of the Kansas City Area Council of Boy Scouts, suggested that the K.C. Council undertake what would soon become a project of nationwide proportions. It would unite Boy Scout troops across America to sell replicas of this patriotic icon in their home towns as a pledge of “everlasting fidelity and loyalty to their forefathers who made possible the freedom of these United States.”

Two hundred models of the Statue of Liberty were ordered from a Chicago foundry to be sold for $350 apiece plus shipping. Constructed of sheet copper and standing 8-feet 4-inches high, each statue weighed 290 pounds, so shipping added considerably to the cost.

Between 1949 and 1951, more than 200 of the replicas were shipped to at least 39 states, including Colorado. A pedestal was not included in the purchase, so individual communities designed and built their own.
Time and the elements have not been kind to these 60-year-old icons and many have been scrapped or relegated to local museums. Longmont’s Miss Liberty is one of only 17 replicas still publicly displayed in Colorado. Other Front Range cities exhibiting her include Greeley, Fort Collins, Johnstown, Loveland, Estes Park and Colorado Springs.

Check the website “Replica Statue of Liberty Search” to see a photographic inventory of Miss Liberty statues in Colorado and elsewhere.

Anne Dyni has lived in Boulder County since 1978. She is the author of four books and creator of three videos on Boulder County history. She served as a cultural history volunteer with the Boulder County Parks and Open Space Department for 20 years.