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STORIES FROM IOWA'S PAST
The famous (and infamous) who have had a lasting impact on the state and the world
The Dubuque fountain that disappeared
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A Guide For Newbies and Out-Of-Staters.
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A Guide For Newbies and Out-Of-Staters.
INDEPTHIowa
When San Francisco dentist Henry D. Cogswell approached the people of Dubuque offering to build a grand fountain in Washington Park in honor of Kate Shelley, local officials accepted the gift. But the result was one of the strangest chapters on philanthropic history in the state of Iowa, a chapter in Dubuque’s past that is all forgotten.
Cogswell, a San Francisco dentist, made millions of dollars with profits from his practice that he invested in real estate. Cogswell was a passenger on the train that Shelley stopped in 1881 and he said he wanted to build the fountain in gratitude to her nearly 20 years after the incident.
By 1900, Cogswell had built fountains around the United States, believing that if people had access to cool water they wouldn't consume alcoholic beverages. His goal was to build one drinking fountain for every 100 saloons in the United States. The fountains themselves were elaborate structures, designed by Cogswell himself and built of granite. His fountains can still be found in Washington, D.C., New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Boston, and San Francisco. The D.C. fountain is known as the "Temperance Fountain."
INSIDE:
• Read the account of Kate Shelley's heroic walk across a big wooden bridge in the midst of a rainstorm which saved countless lives and changed her life forever.
• The Boone and Scenic Valley Railroad offers excursion trains over the famous bridge. Click here to visit their website.
INSIDE:
Almost from the beginning the fountain was not popular, possibly because Dubuque's brewers disagreed with the inscription on the fountain that promoted abstinence by hailing "pure water for man and beast". People complained that the fountain did more to honor Cogswell than it did Shelley. The fountain was topped with a bearded cast-iron likeness of the dentist-realtor and prominently displayed his name.
Its inscriptions included one to Kate Shelley, reading in part: "Presented by Dr. Henry D. Cogswell, a citizen of San Francisco, Cal., to the citizens of Dubuque, and dedicated to Miss Kate Shelley.”
People grumbled about the statue, a mysterious attempt to bomb it failed when the cast iron man weathered the blast. Then, one day in 1900, the statue was pulled down by a group of vandals buried under the ground of a planned sidewalk.
The next day the sidewalk was poured and the object was entombed.The statue is believed to still be buried under a sidewalk in the park.
Other statues suffered a similar fate: the San Francisco one was torn down by
"a lynch party of self-professed art lovers" and one in Rockville, Connecticut was thrown into Shenipsic Lake. The controversy over the statues gave rise to public arts commissions in many cities charged with screening gifts of art to make sure it was aesthetically pleasing and not offensive.
Cogswell also designed the statue for his own tomb, a 400-ton granite tower, complete with fountains and statues of Hope, Faith, Charity and, Temperance. He is buried in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California. The controversy over the statues gave rise to public arts commissions in many cities charged with screening gifts of art to make sure it was aesthetically pleasing and not offensive.