ARTIST: Earl Lanning
INSTALLATION YEAR: 2019
MEDIUM: Bronze
LOCATION: 215 N. Main Street
This cast bronze statue of a minuteman immortalizes the colonists who fought in the Revolutionary War, among them the early pioneers of Waynesville. A crusade of 2,800 volunteer militiamen traversed the Appalachian wilderness in 1776 to burn and destroy Cherokee towns allied with the British. While tragic, the pivotal campaign quelled the formidable threat that Cherokee’s British allegiance posed to American independence.
Artist Earl Lanning traces his ancestry to the militiamen of the Rutherford Expedition, who camped near present-day Main Street and later returned as Waynesville’s founders. The statue clutches a historic reproduction of a Kentucky flintlock rifle built by Lanning and cast in bronze. The deep, rich brown will develop a green patina as it ages.