History and Culture by Bicycle: statues

Flanking the outside entrance of a sporting goods store in Sioux City, Iowa are 2 of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, they were also the first two Presidents of the United States, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Both are sitting on their own bench, George is to the left and Thomas is to the right of the entrance as a person approaches the building from the outside.

George is holding and looking at the first page of the U.S. Constitution and Thomas is holding and looking at the first page of the Bill of Rights. Next to each seated statue is a large plaque with facts about each founding father.

The sporting goods store in question is a chain store called Scheels. The Scheels store in Sioux City is one of the anchor stores at Southern Hills Mall. This blogger inquired with the employees of Scheels about the statues. They advised this blogger each of the Scheels stores has 2 different Founding Fathers or historical people of the United States at the outside entrance. This blogger looks forward to visiting the different Scheels stores within a 200 mile radius to see which historical figures are on display.

Photos:
George Washington

Thomas Jefferson

As mentioned in the previous post about the Prairie Dog Quest that was during the Lewis and Clark Corps of DIscovery Expedition celebration from 2004 to 2006 there were also statues created called Discovery Dogs as part of the celebration to commemorate the journey that was from 1804 to 1806. These fiberglass statues were painted and decorated with specific themes like the prairie dogs and placed through out the Greater Siouxland area. After they were on public display for a period of time they were auctioned off. Some ended up in private collection never to be seen again by the public but others are still on public display.

The Discovery Dogs were created because of Captain William Clarks Newfoundland dog Seaman. Seaman was an important part of the expedition. One time he even saved the camp by chasing off a bison who had wandered too close. This is mentioned in the journals written during the trip.

Here is the location of where the Discovery Dogs were located while on public display:
Seaman, the Discovery Dogs public art program now on display at 30 locations around Siouxland

I have managed to take photo's of the dogs I know of that are still on public display. Here they are:

The News Hound is on display outside the Sioux City Journal office.