By James Massara
The Crawford County Courthouse soon will have a familiar face keeping watch over the steps on E. Mansfield St.
The Crawford County Commissioners recently approved to have a newly constructed statue of Col. William Crawford to be shipped back to Bucyrus to be placed in the previous location of the original statue, which was placed at the courthouse in 1906.
The replacement comes after vandals decapitated the original statue in August.
The commissioners received photos of the statue from Longstreth Memorials of the statue as it was completed in China. Longstreth Memorials created a smaller clay rendition of the statue using photos of the previous Col. Crawford, and sent the statue to China.
The commissioners said sending the work to China to be completed was not simply an economic decision, but it was also due to the difficulty of finding an artist capable of performing the work.
The statue is expected to be shipped by Feb. 4 and take six to eight weeks to arrive in Crawford County. The commissioners said they hope to have the statue in place by April 1.
The new statue will be granite, a much sturdier rock compared to the previous sandstone, according to the commissioners.
Reports were made that during removal and transportation of the previous statue, the sandstone already was deteriorating.
Other replacements made because of the vandalism of the statue include, new high-definition surveillance cameras being installed around the courthouse.
The commissioners said law enforcement officials do possess a video of the head of the statue being removed, and the issue remains under investigation of the Crawford County Sheriff’s Office.
Crawford County Sheriff Scott Kent said the video in his possess is poor grainy quality and was shot from a distance. He said his office has not been able to enhance the video for a clearer picture.
He reported the video showing a person running across the street, but the quality is too poor to possess any useful details.