Every time I drive up 39th from I-84 towards Belmont (usually so I can quench my thirst with some friends at one of the fine watering holes along that street) I have to pass through a roundabout at the intersection with Gleason. Normally, this would provoke some indignant response from me due to my admittedly irrational distain for roundabouts (especially ones where you have to stop anyway before going around...why not just make a normal damn intersection!). This roundabout, however, draws my attention away from its inherent annoyance and makes me wonder, "Why is there a big, golden statue of Joan of Arc in the middle of Portland?" Well, enough is enough and its time to get to résoudre ça mystère.
First thing I need to do is get a closer look at it. I parked my car on one of the side streets off 39th, about a block south and walk up to the roundabout. The first thing we noticed (I had Virginia with me since I was taking her home after work via the B-Side) was that there is no crosswalk to get to the park in the middle. The lanes do go from 2 to 1 next to the bus stop, so we crossed over to that and quickly made our way across the street to the park.
Getting a close up look at the statue I could see a stoic yet determined look in her face that is impossible to see zipping by in a car. There were no dedication plaques, but there were little tidbits of information on the statue. On the front of the pedestal it reads:
First thing I need to do is get a closer look at it. I parked my car on one of the side streets off 39th, about a block south and walk up to the roundabout. The first thing we noticed (I had Virginia with me since I was taking her home after work via the B-Side) was that there is no crosswalk to get to the park in the middle. The lanes do go from 2 to 1 next to the bus stop, so we crossed over to that and quickly made our way across the street to the park.Getting a close up look at the statue I could see a stoic yet determined look in her face that is impossible to see zipping by in a car. There were no dedication plaques, but there were little tidbits of information on the statue. On the front of the pedestal it reads:
Joan of Arc
Maid of Orleans
1412-1431
Maid of Orleans
1412-1431
That pretty much confirms that it's a statue of Joan of Arc. I was always told that's what it was, but since I didn't know what the 15th century French heroine looked like (mostly because there are no known depictions of her that survived till modern times) I just sort of took their word for it.
The pedestal also seems to indicate that she is riding into battle during the siege at Orléans in 1429 (or she was just ridding in to clean up the place). This was a major turning point during the Hundred Year's War because, among other reasons, the French actually achieved a military victory (never thought I would say that). It all began with Joan going to the uncrowned King Charles VII with a tale of how God told her to kick the English out of France. For whatever reason, Chuck bought into her story and sent her to Orléans which had been under siege for six months. Joan showed up on April 29th and by May 8th the English had packed up their tea and crumpits and left. So you see, the French can win...they just need to be lead by someone with the balls of a 17 year old girl. While we are on the subject of French bashing; the war probably took so long because the French soldiers refused to fight more than 35 hours a week, 39 hours being far to taxing on them.
On the right side (if you were sitting on the horse) of the statue, just under the hooves, there is an inscription that reads, "F. Barbedienne, Fondeur. Paris, France". At first I thought this might be the sculptures name, but it's actually the mark of the F. Barbedienne foundry located in Paris. These guys invented a way to mechanically create bronze reproductions of statues, which they did from 1838 till 1952 (with the exceptions of 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War). Our statue is one of eight castings. Four of them are in France, one is in Melbourne, Australia, one is in Philadelphia, and the youngest one (dedicated in 1972) is in New Orleans. The original was commissioned in 1874 by Emperor Napoleon III and sculpted by Emmanuel Frémiet. That statue is in the Place des Pyramides in Paris.
On the other side we found another engraving, "A Gift to Portland from Henry Waldo Coe M.D. 1924". Now things start to fall into place. Henry Coe was a psychiatrist who owned the Morningside Hospital nuthouse in East Portland. He also seemed to have a thing for donating statues to Portland. Aside from the Joan of Arc (donated in 1924, as indicated), there was also the Theodor Roosevelt (1922) across from Art Museum (Calvin Coolidge did the ground breaking ceremony), there was a ten-foot, bronze Abraham Lincoln (1926) situated in the South Park Blocks between SW Main and Madison, and finally a George Washington (1927) that sits on 47th and Sandy Blvd. In 1905 he also donated the material for Alice Cooper to make the Sacajawea statue in Washington Park.
Dr. Coe donated the Joan of Arc statue to memorialize the American "doughboys" that fought alongside the French during World War I. The statue was unveiled on Memorial Day 1925, not coincidentally the anniversary of Joan's martyrdom on May 30, 1431. The statue was unveiled in what is now known as Coe Park at the center of the Laurelhurst neighborhood. On
May 30, 2002 there was a rededication of the statue after it was restored (new, very shiny gold-leave coating, new flag and new laurel wreath on her head).
The only other thing I noticed was the peculiar placement of the statue itself. Rather than being in the center of the park, it is on the southern side. Turns out the reason for this is related to the name of the neighborhood. Prior to 1921, this whole area used to be owned by the Laurelhurst Company and called "Block A". They set up an office on the north side of what would become Coe Park because the Portland Railway Light and Power streetcar line (the Montavilla line) ran through the center of the circle. The property was sold to the McFadden Building Co. in late 1921 who wanted to develop the area but after a ruckus caused the local residents the area was deeded to the city in April 1922. In 1924 the only place to put the statue was the southern edge of the circle. Eventually the Laurelhurst Co. building moved, and the tracks were filled in when buses replaced the streetcars leaving us with a big grassy roundabout and an off-center, golden statue of Joan of Arc.
The pedestal also seems to indicate that she is riding into battle during the siege at Orléans in 1429 (or she was just ridding in to clean up the place). This was a major turning point during the Hundred Year's War because, among other reasons, the French actually achieved a military victory (never thought I would say that). It all began with Joan going to the uncrowned King Charles VII with a tale of how God told her to kick the English out of France. For whatever reason, Chuck bought into her story and sent her to Orléans which had been under siege for six months. Joan showed up on April 29th and by May 8th the English had packed up their tea and crumpits and left. So you see, the French can win...they just need to be lead by someone with the balls of a 17 year old girl. While we are on the subject of French bashing; the war probably took so long because the French soldiers refused to fight more than 35 hours a week, 39 hours being far to taxing on them.
On the right side (if you were sitting on the horse) of the statue, just under the hooves, there is an inscription that reads, "F. Barbedienne, Fondeur. Paris, France". At first I thought this might be the sculptures name, but it's actually the mark of the F. Barbedienne foundry located in Paris. These guys invented a way to mechanically create bronze reproductions of statues, which they did from 1838 till 1952 (with the exceptions of 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War). Our statue is one of eight castings. Four of them are in France, one is in Melbourne, Australia, one is in Philadelphia, and the youngest one (dedicated in 1972) is in New Orleans. The original was commissioned in 1874 by Emperor Napoleon III and sculpted by Emmanuel Frémiet. That statue is in the Place des Pyramides in Paris.
On the other side we found another engraving, "A Gift to Portland from Henry Waldo Coe M.D. 1924". Now things start to fall into place. Henry Coe was a psychiatrist who owned the Morningside Hospital nuthouse in East Portland. He also seemed to have a thing for donating statues to Portland. Aside from the Joan of Arc (donated in 1924, as indicated), there was also the Theodor Roosevelt (1922) across from Art Museum (Calvin Coolidge did the ground breaking ceremony), there was a ten-foot, bronze Abraham Lincoln (1926) situated in the South Park Blocks between SW Main and Madison, and finally a George Washington (1927) that sits on 47th and Sandy Blvd. In 1905 he also donated the material for Alice Cooper to make the Sacajawea statue in Washington Park.
Dr. Coe donated the Joan of Arc statue to memorialize the American "doughboys" that fought alongside the French during World War I. The statue was unveiled on Memorial Day 1925, not coincidentally the anniversary of Joan's martyrdom on May 30, 1431. The statue was unveiled in what is now known as Coe Park at the center of the Laurelhurst neighborhood. On
May 30, 2002 there was a rededication of the statue after it was restored (new, very shiny gold-leave coating, new flag and new laurel wreath on her head).The only other thing I noticed was the peculiar placement of the statue itself. Rather than being in the center of the park, it is on the southern side. Turns out the reason for this is related to the name of the neighborhood. Prior to 1921, this whole area used to be owned by the Laurelhurst Company and called "Block A". They set up an office on the north side of what would become Coe Park because the Portland Railway Light and Power streetcar line (the Montavilla line) ran through the center of the circle. The property was sold to the McFadden Building Co. in late 1921 who wanted to develop the area but after a ruckus caused the local residents the area was deeded to the city in April 1922. In 1924 the only place to put the statue was the southern edge of the circle. Eventually the Laurelhurst Co. building moved, and the tracks were filled in when buses replaced the streetcars leaving us with a big grassy roundabout and an off-center, golden statue of Joan of Arc.
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