While Ezra Winter was hard at work painting the murals of the memorial, Hermon MacNeil arrived in Vincennes with his great masterpiece, the statue of George Rogers Clark that would stand in the center of the rotunda. On December 4, 1934, workmen placed the stone that would surround the bronze plaque to be set in the floor, and on the 6th of December they positioned the marble pedestal that the statue would sit on, and finally on the 7th, the bronze statue was placed. Clark is depicted in a Continental army uniform, instead of, as one critic observed, the tattered nondescript uniform of the Indian fighter. The critic observed that this would give the Midwest a tone of culture and put Clark on a level playing field with other great Revolutionary War figures such as George Washington and John Adams. The bronze plaque in the floor (pictured in the second photo) included oak leaves and acorns. After his death, Clark was remembered as the mighty oak of the forest.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 15:43:00 +0000
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