Statue rededication highlights festival
By JILL SCHRAMM, Staff Writer, jschramm@minotdailynews.comArticle Photos
Visitors to Minot's Festival in the Parks celebrated the Fourth of July by rededicating the 85-year-old statue of President Theodore Roosevelt located in his namesake park.
The bronze statue of Roosevelt on horseback was restored last month after Don May of Minot spearheaded efforts last year to return the monument to its former glory. The statue had shown signs of aging, with missing parts and a green appearance.
May, a retired member of the 7th Cavalry re-enactors, dressed in costume to preside over the statue unveiling. Members of the historical cavalry group, looking much like Col. Roosevelt's Roughriders, demonstrated maneuvers and pulled the veil from the statue as a cannon boomed.
Connie Feist of the Minot Park Board and Minot Mayor Curt Zimbelman expressed satisfaction in seeing the project completed.
The City of Minot contributed $15,000 toward the cost to assist the park board in funding the restoration.
"I believe that was time and money well spent," Zimbelman said. "This statue is truly the centerpiece of the park and a piece of Minot's rich history."
The park board hired conservator Jonathan Taggart of Georgetown, Maine, to restore the statue. Taggart applied a coating of special synthetic wax to diminish the aging process. He also cast new parts for the horse's bridle and re-attached the officer's sword that had been in storage after its recovery from the bottom of the nearby Souris River.
Dr. Henry Waldo Coe donated the statue to the Minot park in 1924. Coe came to Dakota Territory from Wisconsin as, reportedly, the first physician in what is now North Dakota, according to a history presented by May. Coe had studied at the University of Minnesota and with his father, Dr. Samuel Coe. He graduated from Long Island, N.Y., College Hospital in 1880 and moved to Mandan. In 1890, he was elected president of the State Medical Association and was appointed superintendent of the State Board of Health.
In 1884, he was elected to the last territorial legislature before the territory was divided into two Dakotas. He also is believed to have been mayor of Mandan.
Coe met Roosevelt when Roosevelt was living in Billings County, which was part of his legislative district. They became life-long friends.
Coe commissioned Alexander Phimister Proctor, an internationally known artist, to do the Roosevelt sculptures. Born in 1860 in Bozanquit, Ont., Proctor grew up on the frontier in Colorado but moved to New York City to study design. He also studied in Paris and displayed some of his pieces at the World Columbian Exposition in 1893 in Chicago. The American Museum of Natural History did its first documentary on the art of sculpture, using Proctor's Roosevelt works as its basis.
May said it took some time to unravel the mystery of why Coe donated the statue to Minot. With the help of Marilyn Holbach, historian at Minot Public Library, he discovered that Coe had become friends with James Johnson, a Minot resident and member of the territorial legislature. Coe pledged to Johnson that the only full-size version of the Roosevelt sculpture between the East and the West Coasts would be in Minot.
A similar statue exists in Portland, Ore., where Coe later lived. He operated a hospital in Portland and served in Oregon's legislature in 1894. And, according to May, there is another statue in Washington, D.C.
Coe donated a smaller sculpture to Mandan.
"When it was learned the sculpture would be donated to Minot, the school children of that era began a fund drive, collecting pennies to assist in its cost. Exactly how much was raised is not known, as there was no recorded history in that regard," May said. "On the day of the dedication, the entire town of Minot closed for business. A huge parade was held, and the people came from far and wide to attend the ceremony."
The rededication also drew a patriotic crowd. In addition to the rededication, Festival in the Park events included a fun run, fitness walk, arts and crafts displays and sales, an all-faith church service, ice cream social, concerts and children's games.
