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On 12 February 1915, the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic dedicated a statue of Abraham Lincoln in front of the Old Soldiers Home (the location of which is now Veteran’s Memorial Park) in Boise. The statue was one of seven produced by the W.H. Mullins Manufacturing Company of Salem, Ohio based on a design by German artist Alphonso Pelzer*. In the early 1960s, when the Old Soldiers Home moved to the location of the current Idaho State Veteran’s Home in Fort Boise, the Lincoln statue moved as well.In 2009, as part of the Lincoln Bicentennial celebration on 12 February, the statue was dedicated in its present location on the Idaho Capitol Mall at the south end of Steunenberg Park adjacent to Bannock Street.
* One source claims that Pelzer actually created only one Lincoln statue that is now in New Jersey, while the rest were created by artist John Segesman who was hired by the W.H. Mullins Company after Pelzer had returned to Germany.
More in the Idaho Capitol Mall History series:
- Abraham Lincoln Statue
- Meeker Oregon Trail Monument
- Space Shuttle Monument