By FRANK BOYETT, Gleaner staff 831-8342 * fboyett@thegleaner.com
October 29, 2005

A statue honoring the muscle and blood that built Audubon State Park will be erected Wednesday and publicly dedicated Nov. 14.

The statue is a six-foot-high bronze depicting a brawny shirtless young man representing the workers of the Civilian Conservation Corps, better known as the CCC, which provided the manpower to build the state park in the 1930s.

 "It's really neat looking," said Mary Dee Miller, Audubon State Park manager. She strongly encouraged former CCC workers and their families to attend the dedication.

"The most important thing is to get as many CCC workers there as we can," she said. "This (statue) is the only one in Kentucky," although it is one of 32 that have been erected at other CCC sites across the country.

All of the statues are identical and are from a mold designed by Sergey Kazaryam of Elliot Gantz & Co. of New York City. "This is really a big deal to have the first one in Kentucky," Miller said.

CCC alumni Clyde "Tubby" Littrell spearheaded the local project, which is costing about $20,000. The city and county governments each contributed $5,000, and the remainder of the money was raised privately.

"The county also donated labor to put in the pedestal where the statue stands," Miller said. Furthermore, she said, a county crew "will set it on the pedestal for us" Wednesday. "That thing weighs 600 to 800 pounds."

The CCC was a federal New Deal program that helped America climb from the depths of the Great Depression. The local camp was instituted Oct. 4, 1934. It was called Camp Cromwell in honor of Emma Guy Cromwell, the state parks commissioner who signed off on the idea for Audubon State Park when she visited here in mid-January 1934.

The federal program "was an important thing to them," Miller said of the CCC alumni. "It saved the lives of their families. You can't believe the number of visitors we get here" who talk about their father's service in the CCC. "We want to get as many workers as we can here, or their families."

More information can be obtained by calling Miller at 826-2247.