News
December 5, 2008
Sir Walter Raleigh Statue Is Becoming Tourist "Must See"
The likeness of Sir Walter Raleigh has been all around this town. It seems its fourth location is the charm.
The statue was moved to the front of the Raleigh Convention Center on Sept. 4, just in time for the grand opening. For the past two years it anchored the South Street/Salisbury Street corner lawn of the Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts.
Now, just three months into this Salisbury Street location, the statue is starting some buzz. Raleigh Convention Center Director Roger Krupa said that the statue prompts many inquiries from conventioneers. He said that the Raleigh Rickshaw drivers have made it a “must see” for visitors to Downtown Raleigh.
“It has found its home,” Mr. Krupa said. “It definitely is becoming a Capital City icon.”
Raleigh Rickshaw drivers say that rubbing Sir Walter’s booted foot is quickly becoming a tourist “must do” for good luck.
 It seems fitting that the renowned explorer and courtier’s rightful place is welcoming visitors from throughout the globe to his fair namesake city. It has been quite a journey – 421 years since he launched the colony bearing his name that was claimed by oblivion; 390 years after being beheaded for attempting to overthrow King James I; and 107 years after North Carolina’s school children began contributing their pennies to create a statue to honor his life.
Getting To Know Sir Walter Raleigh
The English courtier, soldier, mariner, poet, historian and colonizer is responsible for the first attempts at English colonization of North America. Although his efforts at colonizing North Carolina failed, he is credited with stimulating interest in the new world, giving first North Carolina and then North America to England; thus tipping the New World colonizing race away from Spain.
The fourth of his sponsored explorations carried 89 men, 17 women and nine children who were to found the ill-fated “Citie of Raleigh in Virginia” on Roanoke Island. (All of North America from Florida to Newfoundland were referred to as Virginia at that time in honor of the “Virgin Queen” Elizabeth I.) All of the settlers vanished, creating the first English mystery of the New World, known as the Lost Colony.
The Statue
When the capital city of North Carolina was created in 1792, it was named to honor this dashing Elizabethan figure. Yet, it was more than a century later that a movement was formed to raise the money to commission the statue.
This 11-foot bronze sculpture has faced recurring challenges comparable to those the man himself endured.
In 1901, school children contributed pennies, nickels and dimes to see a memorial to this man who was responsible for the first English colony in America and for whom their state capital was named. The children from throughout the state gave generously to the Sir Walter Raleigh Commission and the sum grew substantial but was not put to its purpose. A goodly portion of the contributions were lost in a Depression bank failure. Only $10,228 of the Tarheel children’s donations remained.
Sporadic and half-hearted attempts to bring the statue into being surfaced and succumbed over the coming decades. Finally, the approaching American bicentennial prompted fruitful action. In 1975 a statue was commissioned to be executed by noted sculptor Bruno Lucchesi of New York. Corporate sponsors from throughout the state contributed to getting the statue created and dedicated during the nation’s two-hundredth birthday the year ahead.
Seventy-five years into the idea stage, Mr. Lucchesi moved the idea of the statue into metallic reality. It was to be a heroically scaled bronze sculpture. The Italian-born artist prevailed upon the Sir Walter Raleigh Commission members to allow his vision of the sixteenth-century genius to be realized. While many of the commission members wanted Sir Walter Raleigh represented in the “ruff” -- the customary curly collar of his time, the artist prevailed with Sir Walter Raleigh striking a haughty pose in open collar.
Mr. Lucchesi saw Sir Walter Raleigh as an elegant, handsome man. “He wasn’t a sloppy fellow. I think he carries some elegance with him,” he said in a 1976 interview.
A 3 ½ -foot model of the statue was taken to Mr. Lucchesi’s home of Pietrasanta, Italy where the 11-foot statue was created and cast in bronze.
Just in Time
The statue was dedicated by Governor James E. Holshouser, Jr. in Bicentennial Plaza on Dec. 3, 1976, the waning days of the nation’s two-hundredth birthday.
The statue proved a welcome presence for many of the State’s power-wielding denizens. One of which was the late former Agriculture Commissioner James A. Graham who led an effort in 1985 to have the statue cleaned. The green and gray discoloration was corrosion, which is to bronze what rust is to other metals.
The statue was sent to Eleftherios Karkadoulias of Karkadoulias Bronze Art Co. in Cincinnati which has restored all of the statues encircling the Capitol throughout the years. Sir Walter returned to Ohio 20 years later for another refurbishment. The company dismantled the statue and transported it to its facility. The interior and exterior of the statue were cleaned and repaired. The repair work included filling any holes or hairline cracks using the same alloy as was used in the original casting. The refurbishing restored the original patina and the interior and exterior was covered with a protective coating.
The newly refurbished statue welcomed the opening of Fayetteville Street, as it was unveiled to a throng of 75,000 Raleigh Wide Open 1 revelers on July 29, 2006.
Three Other Homes
The statue’s first home was the Bicentennial Plaza, where he stood for 12 years starting December 1976. The construction of the new North Carolina Museum of History and the redesign of the plaza required its relocation on Dec. 1, 1988. Its second home was the 100 block of Fayetteville Street Mall where the gent gazed upon the Capitol until being shipped out in the spring of 2005 to make way for the conversion of the pedestrian mall to vehicular traffic.
At this time it was sent to Cincinnati for a thorough refurbishment. The statue returned home in July 2006, just in time for the opening of Fayetteville Street and to revel in the first Raleigh Wide Open.
All knew his third location was temporary. The statue was to stand vigil over the corner of Salisbury and South streets for only two years, awaiting the completion of the Raleigh Convention Center.
In 1901, when the idea of the statue was born and the youth-based fund raising began, the site was to have been Nash Square so that visitors de-boarding trains would be sure to see the City’s namesake. Obviously, 75 years later when the statue came to be, there was no train serving Nash.
However, Nash Square remained among the sites considered by the North Carolina Historical Commission when it moved the statue from the Bicentennial Plaza to Fayetteville Street in 1988. Other locations considered were Moore Square, other Fayetteville Street Mall locations, the front of Memorial Auditorium and New Bern Place Park.
Obviously, its best site yet is its present, where the courtly explorer can welcome visitors to his city, the Raleigh Convention Center and maybe even give them a little luck in the bargain.
Prepared by:
Jayne Kirkpatrick
Director
Public Affairs Department
For More Information Contact:
Jayne Kirkpatrick
Director
Public Affairs Department
222 West Hargett Street
Raleigh, NC 27602
919-996-3100
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