Black Hawk is a colossal statue by the great american sculptor Lorado Taft. An artist of great experience and extraordinary talent. The statue is known as The Black Hawk but Lorado Taft who dedicated it to all Native Americans gave it the name of The Eternal Indian.

This monumental statue was inaugurated on July 1, 1911 in Lowden State Park in Oregon, Illinois. In 1898, Taft and a group of friends founded the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony on a promontory on the River Rock, on land rented by the owner to the frequenters of the same art colony.
The members of the colony used to climb the hills and talk while admiring the landscape with their arms folded. Lorado Taft thought that the same gesture had most likely been made in the past by the Native Americans of those lands and this gave him the idea of ​​dedicating a statue to them.
He proposed his first idea for a huge monument to John Prasuhn, a sculptor of German origin living in Chicago, who had experience in the construction of concrete bridges. And concrete was exactly the material that Taft intended to use for this project. Taft had seen the concrete chimneys being poured at the University of Chicago where he taught sculpture and had been very impressed.

The artist quickly made some drawings and then a large life-size sketch, one hundred and eighty centimeters tall. He then placed a wooden template on a wagon and moved it along the banks of the river to assess at a glance the best position to view the statue. Prasuhn began designing the internal armature in the fall of 1909. He then built the body armature (seven times larger than Taft’s plaster model) out of metal, wood, burlap, and wire, ready to be covered in concrete. Unfortunately, during the winter, his work was destroyed by strong winds and incessant rains. In the early summer of 1910, Taft and Prasuhn re-started the work by building a new internal structure for the statue. The laborious work continued for many months, without rest.

Before the winter, Taft and Prashun poured a 2-meter-square concrete base on which they erected the scaffolding and prepared the plaster mold. The inside surfaces of the mold were treated with a layer of paraffin and clay water to make it easier to remove. Over two tons of steel rods were mounted inside to reinforce the concrete and support the statue’s head. A storm caused the scaffolding to fall again, delaying the work. Prashun had to improvise a way to keep the water from freezing, and the new scaffolding was covered with a huge canvas to protect the workers and the statue from the cold and wind. The scaffolding was then brought closer to the plaster mold, previously taken over the clay model, to pour the concrete inside. Another mold was mounted on the inside of the scaffolding. The following December, 28 workers were employed in the final phase, the pouring of the concrete took place on the 20th. In this phase it was important not to stop until the entire mold with the armature inside it was filled. The men worked day and night for several days, finding shelter and comfort in a temporary shack built near the statue and heated by steam engines. The water needed for the work was pumped with a drain directly from the river that was 650 meters below the site and all the cement was donated by the Portland Cement Company.
At 2:45 p.m. on December 30, on a cold winter day, the pouring of cement and sand into the mold was completed.

The enlarged head was modeled in clay directly under the statue, then translated into concrete by the use of a mold and then lifted with tackles onto the wooden scaffolding. Finally it was fixed to the rest of the body by means of a 90 cm diameter tube that descends along the entire length from the head to the feet of the statue.

The statue, which weighs approximately 243 tons, required over 24,500 liters of water, 50 cubic meters of Portland cement, 2 tons of steel bars, 180 meters of burlap and 10 tons of plaster of Paris. The statue stands 38 meters above the river and its overall height is approximately 15 meters.

On July 1, 1911, the statue was unveiled. During the dedication ceremony attended by many people during his speech, Lorado Taft stated: If I have done anything spontaneously, it is this. It grew out of the ground. That is what I hope to suggest. I think I was a little rash, or I should never have started it. I am sure I could never have finished it alone.

Lorado Zadok Taft (1860-1936)