There have been 161 posts on Shoulblog so far. And the one that, by far, gets the most traffic over time is About That Statue, a series of pictures of the Lewis & Clark Statue on the St. Louis riverfront. The statue, named “The Captains’ Return,” was somewhat unique in that it was regularly inundated by Mississippi River water whenever the river rose close to flood stage. Because the river level is always changing, the sculpture seemed to be in a different setting every time you saw it, and it was therefore one of my favorite things to photograph in St. Louis during my lunchtime walks. I’m guessing that a lot of people saw the statue, Googled it to find more information about it or pictures of it, and were led to that blog post.
Unfortunately, though, it’s apparently not a good thing for a bronze statue to regularly be underwater for long periods of time. A year or so ago, at the beginning of a long riverfront-renovation project, the city removed the statue, with the promise that it would be refurbished and relocated to a new spot at a higher elevation.
Recently, the statue returned to the riverfront, with a new finish and a new location. It’s now further south from Eads Bridge, and up on Leonor K. Sullivan Blvd., which itself was raised by two feet as part of the riverfront project. The statue is thus protected from many of the high-water events in St. Louis, but by no means all of them. Just this last December, it would have been completely underwater, for example. Still, if the goal is to prevent it from getting inundated every year, this location will work better. I’m just glad to see it back.
