Boy and the Boot (outdoors)

Sandusky, Ohio

For many years Sandusky's original Boy and the Boot statue was thought to have been brought to the city in 1876 from Baden, Germany, by local hotelier Voltaire Scott, himself a German immigrant.

In fact, that story was bogus.

Scott had been born in upstate New York, and he had bought the statue from a J.W. Fiske and Co. catalog in New York, NY (It was sold under the name, "The Unfortunate Boot").

The Boy was unveiled, with much fanfare, in a park across from Scott's hotel in August 1895, and eventually painted white to help preserve its metal. A tornado destroyed the park on June 28, 1924, but the Boy somehow survived. In April 1930 he was moved to a new fountain in Washington Park, and in 1982 he was listed on the National Register of Historic Places -- a unique honor among the many Boy and the Boot statues, as far as we know.

The Boy stood unmolested until July 16, 1991, when a brick-wielding moron knocked off his head, then later toppled him into his fountain. The Boy was repaired, but local officials decided that he was too fragile to resume his duties as a fountain. So a copy of the Boy was cast from the original, in vandal-resistant bronze, and in May 1992 took its place in the Washington Park fountain, where he still stands today.