WILLIAM PENN STATUE

William Penn is a bronze statue by Alexander Milne Calder of William Penn, the founder and namesake for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is located atop the Philadelphia City Hall. It was installed in 1894. It was cast in fourteen sections and took almost two years to finish. At thirty-seven feet in height, it is tallest statue atop any building in the world. FUN FACT: For almost 90 years, an unwritten gentlemen’s agreement forbade any building in the city from rising above the hat on the Penn statue. This agreement ended in 1985, when final approval was given to the Liberty Place complex. Its centerpieces are two skyscrapers, One Liberty Place and Two Liberty Place, which rose well above the height of Penn’s hat. SEE ALSO: Philadelphia City Hall

WILLIAM PENN STATUE ATOP PHILADELPHIA CITY HALL

1894 - WILLIAM PENN STATUE READY FOR LIFTUP

PEGASUS AND DRAGON

Pegasus and Dragon is a 100-foot tall statue of Pegasus defeating a dragon in Gulfstream Park, Hallandale Beach, Florida. It is the third-tallest statue in the United States*.  It is also the world’s largest and tallest equine and European dragon statue. The Pegasus is poised with its front hoof on the neck of the dragon, which lies prostrate far below the level of the equine. The statue complex is 200 feet in length and 115 feet in width. Pegasus is made of 330 tons of steel and 132 tons of bronze. The dragon is made of 110 tons of steel and 132 tons of bronze. At night the statue is home to a fountain show featuring 13 musical pieces, 350 fog nozzles, 116 water nozzles, special LED lighting and dragon breathing fire 20 feet during the show. *Wikipedia lists Birth of the New World in Puerto Rico as tallest statue in the U.S. and the Statue of Liberty as the second tallest.

BLACK HAWK STATUE

The Eternal Indian, sometimes called the Black Hawk Statue, is a 48-foot sculpture by Lorado Taft located in Lowden State Park, near the city of Oregon, Illinois. Dedicated in 1911, the statue is perched over the Rock River on a 77-foot bluff overlooking the city. Black Hawk weighs in at 536,770 pounds and is the second largest concrete monolithic statue in the world (after Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro).

Black Hawk Statue - Oregon, Illinois

THE VULCAN STATUE – BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA

The Vulcan statue, located in Birmingham, Alabama, is 56-foot tall statue of the Roman god Vulcan, god of the fire and forge. It is the city symbol of Birmingham, reflecting its roots in the iron and steel industry. It was created as Birmingham’s entry for the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (1904 World’s Fair). The completed weight of the god Vulcan’s figure alone is 100,000 pounds. When Vulcan’s anvil, block, hammer and spearpoint are added, the statue weighs a total of 120,000 pounds. It stands on a pedestal that is 123-feet tall. The statue has a chest circumference of 22 feet 6 inches and a waist circumference of 18 feet 3 inches. The Vulcan statue is the largest cast iron statue in the world and the largest metal statue ever made in the United States.

ATHENA PARTHENOS (REPLICA)

The Parthenon in Centennial Park, in Nashville, Tennessee, is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens. Alan LeQuire, a Nashville native, was awarded the commission to produce the Parthenon’s cult statue. His work was modeled on descriptions given of the original. The modern version took eight years to complete, and was unveiled to the public on May 20, 1990. The Nashville Athena Parthenos is made of a composite of gypsum cement and ground fiberglass. In 2002, Parthenon volunteers gilded Nashville’s Athena resulting in making the modern statue appear more like the original. The 23.75-karat gold leaf on Nashville’s Athena Parthenos weighs a total of 8.5 pounds and is one-third the thickness of tissue paper. The Athena Parthenos statue stands in the east room of the main hall and is the focus of the Parthenon just as it was in ancient Greece. She is cuirassed and helmeted, carries a shield on her left arm and a small (6-foot high) statue of Nike (Victory) in her right palm. An equally colossal serpent rears its head between her and her shield. Nashville’s Athena Parthenos stands 41 feet 10 inches tall, making her the largest piece of indoor sculpture in the Western World.

"THE MOTHERLAND CALLS" - TALLEST STATUE OF A WOMAN IN THE WORLD

The Motherland Calls is the compositional center of the monument-ensemble "Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad" on Mamayev Kurgan in Volgograd, Russia. It was designed by sculptor Yevgeny Vuchetich and structural engineer Nikolai Nikitin. It is the tallest statue in Europe and the tallest statue (excluding pedestal) of a woman in the world. When the memorial was dedicated in 1967 it was the tallest statue in the world, measuring 279 feet from the tip of its sword to the top of the plinth. The plinth measures another 6.6 feet, and is installed on a concrete foundation with a depth of 52 feet. The figure measures 171 feet, and the sword 108 feet. The monument weighs over 8,000 tons. The sword itself weighs 14 tons. The rigidity of the frame is supported by 99 metal cables constantly in tension.

THE MOTHERLAND CALLS 

THE THUNDER STONE - LARGEST STONE EVER MOVED BY HUMANS

The pedestal upon which stands the Bronze Horseman in Saint Petersburg, Russia is the largest stone ever moved by humans. The Bronze Horseman is an equestrian statue of the Peter the Great in the Senate Square in Saint Petersburg. Commissioned by Catherine the Great, it was created by the French sculptor Étienne Maurice Falconet. The statue’s pedestal is the enormous Thunder Stone. The stone originally weighed about 1,500 tons. The stone was found at Lakhta, 3.7 miles from the Gulf of Finland in 1768. It took 400 men nine months to move the stone, during which time master stonecutters continuously shaped the enormous granite monolith. Upon arrival at sea an enormous barge was constructed exclusively for the Thunder Stone. The vessel had to be supported on either side by two full-size warships. After a short voyage, the stone reached it final destination in 1770, after nearly two years of work.

The Bronze Horseman atop the Thunder Stone in Saint Petersburg, Russia

The Transportation of the Thunder Stone in the Presence of Catherine II; Engraving by I.F. Schley of the drawing by Yury Felton; 1770

NORTH DAKOTA ATTRACTIONS - SALEM SUE VERSUS DAKOTA THUNDER

Salem Sue is the world's largest Holstein Cow statue. Sue is a large fiberglass Holstein cow sculpture located in New Salem, North Dakota, United States. Sue was built in 1974 for $40,000. The project was sponsored by the New Salem Lions Club in honor of the local dairy farming industry. The statue stands 38 feet high and 50 feet long. It sits on School Hill near Interstate 94 off exit 127 S and can be viewed for several miles.

The "World's Largest Buffalo Monument" is a sculpture of an American Bison located in Jamestown, North Dakota at the Frontier Village. It is visible from Interstate 94, overlooking the city from above the James River valley. The statue is a significant tourist draw for Jamestown and the source of its nickname, The Buffalo City. The sculpture is 26 feet tall and 46 feet long and weighs 54 tons. It was constructed with stucco and cement around a steel beam frame shaped with wire mesh. The sculpture was commissioned in 1959 by local businessman Harold Newman, designed by Elmer Petersen, Jamestown College Art Professor and sculptor, and constructed under Peterson's supervision by professional construction workers and community members. On July 24, 2010, the World's Largest Buffalo was named "Dakota Thunder", after a contest that drew more than 3,500 entries.

TALE OF THE TAPE
	SALEM SUE	DAKOTA THUNDER
AGE	44 Years	59 Years
HEIGHT	38 Feet	26 Feet
LENGTH	50 Feet	46 Feet
WEIGHT	12 Tons	54 Tons
COST (2018 $)	$203,798	$78,141

DAKOTA THUNDER

SALEM SUE

WORLD'S LARGEST MOOSE STATUE - "MOOSE WARS"

The world’s tallest moose statue is located in Norway. The statue is named Storelgen, meaning “The Big Elk*”. It stands just over 30 feet tall and was created for a rest stop on Norway’s Route 3 between Oslo and Trondheim. Prior to the building of Storelgen in 2015, the record for the world’s tallest moose statue was held by “Mac the Moose” a fiberglass statue in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Storelgen is about 12 inches taller than Mac. Mac held the title of the world’s largest moose statue for 31 years. Moose Jaw has set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise $50,000 to alter Mac to make it taller than Storelgen. In response, the Norwegians have said they will do whatever is necessary to keep things the way they are. “We’re not letting this one go. Not a chance. We’re going to whatever we can to make sure this is the world’s tallest moose – or biggest moose in the future, as well,” said Linda Otnes Henriksen, Stor-Elvdal’s deputy mayor. Meanwhile, the Canadians have yet to decide how exactly they are going to make their statue taller. So far, the two options on the table are simply increasing the size of its antlers or giving the moose a tall helmet. *What North Americans call a moose is called an elk by Europeans.

Mac the Moose (left) and Storelgen (right)

STATUE OF LIBERTY CROWN

The seven rays on the crown of the Statue of Liberty represent the seven continents.

STATUE OF UNITY – WORLD’S TALLEST STATUE

The Statue of Unity is a colossal statue of Indian statesman and independence activist Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (1875-1950) in the state of Gujarat, India. It is the world’s tallest statue with a height of 597 feet. It is located on a river island facing the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the river Narmanda in Kevadiya colony.