(Photo courtesy of Marietta College’s Legacy Library, Slack research collection) Times photographer Ted Strickland takes a photo of workers attaching a new head to the center “pioneer” of The Start Westward Monument in Muskingum Park in 1962.

Nearly from the moment Gutzon Borglum carved the stone monument to “The Start Westward,” the centerpiece of Muskingum Park has been slowly deteriorating.

An effort is now under way to replace the statue in the park with a bronze copy and move the original indoors.

Newspapers have been reporting on the issue from the beginning. In September of 1938 The Parkersburg Sentinel reported that the artist himself was unhappy with the quality of the stone from which the figures had been carved even though he had approved it before the giant block of native sandstone was moved from a quarry near Ohio between Marietta and Belpre.

The artist was in the habit of using native stone when doing a carving, but told a reporter at the time that he was at a loss as to exactly what kind of rock it was, but would have insisted on importing stone if he had known how poor quality it was.

“When you are a great-great-grandmother, you will point to three little stumps of stone standing in the park and tell your descendants that they used to be three men in a boat and they won’t believe you,” Borgland told reporter Nancy Wamsley. He denied that he had selected the stone and declared that the piece should have been made in bronze.

Dedicated in July 1938 by Franklin Roosevelt, the moment spent decades without a railing around it or a cover over it, exposed not only to the weather, but also people.

Just 23 years later, the monument was literally falling apart. On Nov. 14, 1961, The Marietta Times reported on an accident that cost the middle of the three pioneers his head. The monument was frequently climbed by children. Two small boys were on the statue when the head fell and broke into pieces when it hit the stone plaza below. The Times ran a rather unsettling photo of the headless pioneer. It also reported that the monument had deteriorated rapidly despite preservation efforts.

“Sneaker-shod little boys have been climbing the statue for years, and together with the effect of weathering – wind, rain, snow and time itself – the monument has deteriorated to a point where the pioneers look pitiful,” reported The Times.

Seven months later, on April 3, 1962, The Times ran photos of members of the Lafayette Hotel’s maintenance staff cleaning the statue with revolving steel brushes, likely removing the weathered outer layer of the sandstone. Later in the day the workers attached to the body of the center pioneer a new head, carved not by Borglum, but by Fred Mitchem of Fleming. They also coated the entire monument with silicone material donated by Union Carbide.

A railing was later added around the monument to keep people from climbing on it.

Finally in 2020, 82 years after being placed in the park, the weathered group representing the group of people from New England who established Marietta got a roof over their head, protecting it from rain, snow and sleet.

The future of Marietta’s largest work of art is still uncertain.

Art Smith is online manager of The Marietta Times and The Parkersburg News and Sentinel.

He can be reached at asmith@mariettatimes.com