Seen here on the north side of the Lewis & Clark County Courthouse in the 1920s, this marble statue of Washington was purchased in Oakland, California by L&C County Commissioners in the summer of 1888.

Old and in rather rough shape when purchased, the statue may have been salvaged from the 1867 Oakland City Hall, which burned in 1877. A May 17, 1888 story in the Helena Herald states that the statue, "...was made expressly for a California institute lately destroyed by fire".

The County proclaimed that the statue had been obtained at the bargain price of $250 (roughly $9,000 in 2026 dollars). It may indeed have been a bargain, for it seems doubtful that there was a big demand for used statues of George Washington. It may have been in someone's inventory for quite some time.

The statue was roundly criticized from the moment it was uncrated in Helena.

Exactly what happened to the statue during the 1935 earthquakes is a bit unclear from the newspaper record.

A Nov. 8 item reported that the statue and its pedestal were jostled "several inches out of line" by the quakes, but an Aug. 2 1936 story tells how the statue and pedestal were set upright after lying on the lawn for nearly nine months.

There was a strong aftershock on Nov. 28, 1935, but reports said that little additional damage was done citywide, and no mention of the statue being toppled was found.

Perhaps the statue was laid down to prevent it from falling in another quake, or being damaged by construction.

The photo above, courtesy of David Poor, shows the north side of the damaged courthouse under repair in December of 1935. George is not seen.

The statue was reassembled using some kind of adhesive, and returned to outdoor display.