New bronze Abe Lincoln statue coming to Wilkinsburg

President Abraham Lincoln, who was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hodgenville, Ky., would have been 212 years old Friday. Two years ago, when he was a mere 210, the Wilkinsburg Historical Society announced plans to raise $70,000 to build a bronze, life-size statue of the 16th president of the United States.

It would replace the copper Lincoln statue that was dedicated in 1916 and stood at the intersection of Penn Avenue and Ardmore Boulevard for over a century.

Wilkinsburg Historical Society President Anne Elise Morris started a GoFundMe page and put out the word for donations.

This week, Morris said that the new Lincoln statue, weighing four times as much as the old one, is finished.

Morris had hoped to have the statue ready for an unveiling ceremony on Lincoln’s birthday. The pandemic and bad weather led to a decision to postpone the event until later in the year.

But the new Honest Abe statue will be delivered to the Wilkinsburg Borough Building later this month, Morris said, even though there is still $1,000 left to be raised to pay for the statue and another couple thousand for the setting of the granite base.

“We did get the word that if we don’t have the money right away, they trust us enough to relinquish the statue anyway,” said Morris. “Our plan has always been that we would put him in the Borough Building in the lobby and have him on display there on a short temporary pedestal. People can get up close and take selfies with him, look at him up close and see the detail. It’s a beautiful statue.”

After a few months, a date will be chosen for an outdoor ceremony when, presumably, the weather will be nicer. After improvements were made to the Ardmore wall that surrounds it, the Lincoln statue will be the culmination of a refurbishing project that includes a new dark, granite pedestal, placed in the same spot where the statue long stood.

The more than 100 years of life for the original Lincoln, including a few misadventures, took their toll on the hammered copper statue, once as bright as a new penny.

The final indignity occurred in November 2018, when a car lost control on Penn Avenue and plowed through part of the fencing surrounding the statue. At that point, it was brought inside the Wilkinsburg Borough Building, where it has stood ever since.

Meanwhile, the area for the new statue has been refurbished, thanks to a Keystone Communities grant.

“Three nice new benches have been placed there, so we have a beautiful sitting area, a monument viewing area,” said Morris.

In the meantime, people will soon be able to get a sneak peak at the new Lincoln statue in the Borough Building.

“Now that the statue is done, we want people to see it,” said Morris. “After two years of having an amazing number of people digging deep into their pockets and giving everything from a dollar to $5,000, we don’t want them to have to wait another minute.”

The statue’s artist is world-renowned sculptor Susan Wagner, a Penn Hills native. In Pittsburgh, she is known for the Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell and Bill Mazeroski statues at PNC Park, as well as the statue of Dr. Thomas Starzl, the organ transplant pioneer, at the University of Pittsburgh.