One of the most prominent sites to see is the Keeper of the Plains. The Plains Indians are what are referenced in the Plaza. “The Keeper, a 44-foot tall, 5-ton, Cor-Ten statue, was constructed in 1974 and was the vision of Blackbear Bosin, who helped establish the Indian Museum. In May 2007, upon completion of an 8-year, $20 million dollar project, the Keeper, located at the confluence of the Little and Big Arkansas Rivers, was placed upon a 30-foot promontory.” (Cor-Ten is “weathering steel, often referred to by the genericised trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable rust-like appearance after several years’ exposure to weather.”)
After visiting the Keeper of the Plains, we found that there was some Douglas Avenue Sculptures that were nice. “Thirty one bronze sculptures by Puget Sound, Washington artist Georgia Gerber were placed along streetscape of Wichita, Kansas along East Douglas Avenue in the late 1990s. The whimsical sculptures are incorporated into Lewis Reflection Square Park and the nearby sidewalks, some times incorporating small fountains.” – Don’t worry we didn’t take pictures of all 31 bronze sculptures.
“The largest sculpture is a recreation of a dime store counter, placed in Lewis Reflection Square Park, which was once the site of a F. W. Woolworth store. Coincidentally, an event in the integration of the Wichita area happened at the nearby Dockum Drug Store in 1958. This sculpture was not built to specifically memorialize that incident, but the Georgia Gerber says that “the black man and his grandson were placed at the counter as an intentional acknowledgment of the Dockum Drug Store sit-ins and the peaceful integration it brought about.” So we decided to pull that picture from the web:
We hope you enjoyed these pictures.
