Lady of the Fountain Statue

 This photograph from the collection of the Benton County Historical Society, shows the fountain which once just west of the intersection of Madison and Ninth Streets in Corvallis on what was part of the Oregon State University campus. 

The statue in the middle depicts Hebe, the goddess of youth in Greek mythology.  The daughter of Zeus and Hera and the wife of Hercules, Hebe was supposed to have the power to restore youth and beauty.  The statue was over six feet tall and was made of cast iron.  When the fountain was operating, water poured from the pitcher in the her right hand into the six-foot diameter basin below.  The basin was made of bricks from the original Corvallis College building on Fifth Street.

The fountain was a gift from the class of  1902. The cost of the statue and base was $350 (equivalent to over $3,000 today) which was substantial given that the total enrollment was just over 400 students in all classes.

The fountain soon became part of campus lore and a popular meeting place. Sophomores would dunk “unruly” freshmen in the cold water. Beer bottles would periodically appear in Hebe's pitcher and other items in her left hand.

The Lady was first stolen in October of 1919.  The morning of the discovery, students also noticed green and yellow paint on many surfaces and “Smear OAC” and “Rah for the U of O” painted on the armory walls.  The statue was found in a ditch in the Eugene area. The culprits turned out to be high school students from Eugene along with one UO student. The statue was restored to her place and the student councils at the schools agreed not to “molest” each others' traditions.

The Lady disappeared again the next year.  This time it took 2 years to find her in the basement of the Portland home of a University of Washington student. She was greeted with great fanfare when she arrived in the back seat of  a car during a track meet in Corvallis. After this second incident, the hollow statue was filled with cement with steel rod reinforcements anchoring her to a solid concrete base.

In January 1929, students awoke to this scene.

The “Lady of the Fountain” was smashed to pieces! Someone had taken a sledge hammer to the statue. The hands were recovered and donated to the Horner Museum and are now on display at the Society's Corvallis Museum.

Although a reward was offered for evidence that would lead to the capture of those  responsible, the perpetrators were never caught. Some thought was given to replacing the statue but it was ever done.

Claude Buchanan was a member of the OSU class of '02 which had donated the statue. In 1932, his daughter, OSU graduate Aurella Buchanan, made this small replica of the statue.  It was displayed at the 30th reunion of the donating class and later donated to the Horner Museum.

By Martha Fraundorf, Volunteer for Benton County Historical Society, Philomath, Oregon