ARTIST: Todd Frahm
INSTALLATION YEAR: 2017
MEDIUM: Bronze
LOCATION: 455 Hazelwood Avenue
This sculpture of a fabled Plott Hound extols the bold grit and bravery of Waynesville’s prized bear- hunting dog. Steeped in mountain legend and lore, the hardy Plott Hound was revered by early settlers for its daring tenacity to track and bay a bear many times its size.
The Plott family honed the hound’s superior traits for over 200 years from a strain of German boar-hunting dogs, closely guarding the pure breed within the family for generations after settling here in the early 1800s. In the wildlife- rich frontier, neighboring families would often call on the service of the “Plotts’ hounds” to rid their farms of troublesome predators.
The breed is now the official state dog and liveson in namesakes like nearby Plott Valley and the Plott-Balsam mountain range that cradles the southern horizon of Hazelwood.