A statue of a male ammo plant worker holding a lunch box, stolen in July 2005 in Elwood, Illinois, was replaced with a new statue in late October 2006.

Elwood, a town best known for giving Dan Ackroyd's character its name in The Blues Brothers, was previously best known for the Joliet Army Ammunition Plant explosion of 1942, which killed 48 workers. The life-size statue of a man with the lunch box, erected in 2001, was meant to honor the dead, who were relatively anonymous in life.

Thanks to an equally anonymous donor, a new statue was cast, and was set on the old base on October 24. The only difference between this and the original is that the new statue carries a square, American lunch box, while the old statue carried a rounded, European lunch pail -- an apparent mistake that was corrected this time around.

The new lunch box man's anchoring bolts have been welded in place, and security cameras have been installed. The statue stands near the entrance of the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery, across the street from the Joliet Arsenal. [11/04/2006]

November 26, 2009