Sandusky’s Boy with the Boot Revisited

Earlier this year, I picked up a copy of Sandusky – Then and Now (1959) at one of the Book Sales held at the Lorain Public Library.

What caught my eye was the illustration of Sandusky's famous Boy with the Boot on the cover.

He’s been featured on this blog a few times. I posted a comprehensive history of him that I wrote for the Black Swamp Trader & Irelands Gazette back here in 2014; I wrote a teaser for the Black Swamp article here; and I wrote about how Sandusky lent their beloved statue to the city of Wadsworth so they could make a replica here.

Anyway, seeing him on the book cover inspired me to take a Sunday drive out to Sandusky and grab a Then & Now photo for a vintage postcard that I hadn’t seen before.

Here’s the vintage postcard. You can almost overlook the statue in all the surrounding foliage.

And here’s the “Now” version from last weekend.

Here’s a closeup.

There are still places on the internet that perpetuate the story that Sandusky hotelier Voltaire Scott and his wife brought the statue back from a trip to Baden, Germany. While Scott did present the statue to the city as part of his effort to beautify a park he had created across the street from his hotel, it’s well documented that the statue came from the J. W. Fiske company of New York.

Here’s the article that explains it from the front page of the Sandusky Register of July 4, 1895. The statue and other fountain ornaments had just arrived in the city.

The Register provided an update on the park on August 27, 1895. 

On August 28, 1895 the Register couldn’t resist pointing out that a massive crowd of spectators came out to see the lighting of the fountain, thanks to the paper’s small promotional blurb.

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It is well known that Sandusky’s Boy with the Boot has many lookalike “cousins” all over the world. Here are a few vintage postcards featuring these one-booted doppelgängers.

Wichita, Kansas

Assiniboine-Park, Winnipeg

Wallingford Inn, Wallingford, VT

Wallingford Inn, Wallingford, VT

Monument Park, Houlton, Maine

Monument Park, Houlton, Maine

Monument Park, Houlton, Maine

Hershey, Pennsylvania

Hershey, Pennsylvania (different location)

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By the way, Sandusky unveiled its beautiful new downtown-based City Hall in late June, and sponsored public tours of it in mid-July.

Here’s how it looked last weekend.

The original 1895 Boy with the Boot – the one that used to be in the park before he was replaced with a more durable replica – used to be on display in the old City Hall on Meigs Street. 

But there hasn’t been any mention of him in any of the Register coverage of the new City Hall. Didn’t he make the move?

I called Sandusky City Hall yesterday to find out.

The friendly city employee who answered the phone explained the Boy with the Boot would indeed be making the move to the new City Hall. He had been taken down at his old location, and a new display area was still being prepared in his new home.

I should never have doubted that Sandusky would take anything less than perfect care of its beloved civic symbol.