HELENA — Tuesday, the Capitol Complex Advisory Council unanimously voted to replace the 15-foot, 2,200-pound statue, known as “Montana" rather than refurbish her. She was removed from the Capitol dome in early August.
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“It is a lot of rust, deterioration over time, a lot of corrosion; it has also led to some cracking of certain joints,” Russ Katherman with the Montana Department of Administration Architecture and Engineering Division said.
The goals are to improve the statue's and dome's structural stability, find a long-lasting, weather-resistant option, achieve the highest quality craftsmanship possible, and match the copper appearance.
After evaluations by metalwork preservationists and historic architects, two options were available: refurbish or replace.
“Their analysis demonstrated that the best long-term solution for the Capitol, for the copper, and the statue itself is to do a full replacement,” Katherman added.
That steered the council away from refurbishment because it left uncertainty about her lifespan and how well the copper would be matched.
It also would require her to be disassembled with a price tag of just over $371,000.
The council’s decision to replace means that all goals are met, and they will use scans and molds to make a new Montana to call the Capitol dome home for the next 100 years or more.
“The craftsmen will start from there with an interior stainless steel structure on the inside and then overlay the new molded copper to the outside,” Katherman said.
The cost to replace her sits at $790,000 and is budgeted in the over $28 million capitol restoration project.
The original 1901 statue, also called “Lady Liberty” and “Lady Montana,” will return to the Montana Historical Society, where it will become part of the permanent collection.
An exact timeline for her replication has not been set, but those working on the project estimate the process to take around a year.
The Department of Administration also says that there will be no souvenirs or pieces of copper available to the public from the restorations.
