Black Hawk makes national register: Historic designation makes monument 
eligible for grants

OREGON – The stately statue known as Black Hawk, patiently overseeing the rolling Rock from its perch atop a bluff in Lowden State Park for a century now, has attained true monumental status.

The “Eternal Indian” is now listed on the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places, the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency announced in a news release Saturday.

“The Black Hawk statue is significant for its contribution to the history of American sculpture, and as a master work of the famous American sculptor, Lorado Taft,” Jan Grimes, director of the preservation agency, said in the release.

“We welcome its inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, the nation’s most prestigious listing of properties with historical significance.”

The National Register is the federal government’s official list of historic properties worthy of preservation. The preservation agency administers the National Register program in Illinois.

The listing makes the area icon eligible for federal grants for much-needed maintenance and repair work. It’s been about 15 years since major renovation work was done to the chief.

Local tourism and other officials, who say Black Hawk already draws thousands to Lowden every year, expect even more tourist traffic now that it has made the high-profile federal list.

The 48-foot statue was the largest monolithic poured concrete statue in the United States when it was built, beginning in 1908. It sits on a 77-foot bluff overlooking the city of Oregon, on land that was once home to the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony, which Taft founded. 

The sculpture announced a new use for concrete – public works of art, making it one of the world’s most important pieces of sculpture at the time, the release said.

Taft finished the statue in 1911. He named it the “Eternal Indian” to honor Native Americans in the Rock River Valley. But it is more commonly known as Black Hawk, for the Sauk medicine man who led his warriors into battle against U.S. troops in 1832, in an effort to keep their land from being taken over by settlers.

Taft, a Chicago artist, is internationally known for his public works of art, including the “Fountain of Time” in Chicago’s Washington Park and “Alma Mater” at the University of Illinois in Urbana.