Iron Horse Friends
by Reid Callaway
Title
Iron Horse Friends
Artist
Reid Callaway
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
The Iron Horse......
Standing proudly in a Greene County field some 18 miles south of Athens on Georgia Hwy 15. The 2-ton iron sculpture has been making headlines since the day it reared its head in front of Reed Hall on the University of Georgia campus more than 40 years ago. The famed piece has been fought over, ridden and ridiculed, has had mentions in Time magazine, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Atlanta magazine, not to mention the slew of Athens writers who've tackled the subject. A film was even made about the notorious horse in 1982 by William VanDerKloot.
An entirely post-World War II development, metal sculpture was making one of its first appearances in the country on the UGA campus. On the very evening that the sculpture of the Iron Horse was placed in front of Reed Hall, a number of disgruntled students set to work with their own creative ideas for the piece. The horse was scribbled on with paint, hay was shoved into its mouth while manure was scattered on the ground behind it, and finally a mattress was placed under it and set on fire.
The artist said to The Atlanta Journal on May 28, 1954, ''I was struck with the idea of ancient Athens where people lived with sculpture all around them, and even if they didn't like it, they left it alone. I wanted Athens, Ga., to have a piece of sculpture to look at. And I think the least I could have expected, even if they didn't like it, was a little Southern courtesy.''
Time magazine picked up the story of the horse on June 7, 1954, and quotes Pattison as well: ''It's degrading to have that happen to anyone's idea. ...The university took quite a courageous step in ... having me come down here and work in the first place. ... Now I think their action in taking the horse down and hiding it is cowardly. ... I feel terrible.''
Never again to grace the campus, the Iron Horse was, as Pattison said, taken into hiding. Then in 1958, J.A. Williams, dean of students and director of development, wrote a letter to Dodd, telling him that L.C. Curtis of the university's horticulture department wanted to take the horse and put it on his land where people could drive by and see it. Throughout the years there has been talk about bringing the horse back. Jack Curtis, son of L.C., told the Athens Observer he disagreed with moving the horse back to campus.
''The administration of the university abdicated their response and abandoned the horse,'' Curtis wrote the newspaper. Jack Curtis says part of the reason he feels the horse is in its proper place is aesthetic. ''The expanse of the curve it's on provides people driving by a nice long look at it,'' he says. ''I've been up there quite a bit and watched people in cars -- seen their faces, you know. And few people drive by without taking a good look at it,'' he adds with a hint of pride. ''It's made an awful lot of people who wouldn't ordinarily be exposed to sculpture exposed to it. ''People also used to go out there and tip it over all the time,'' Curtis says. ''That was before we put it in concrete in the mid or late '60s. Seemed like every Monday we'd have to go over and push it back up.'' It seems there's no truth to the rumor that the horse has its backside facing Athens because of its sour experience on campus. ''The truck got stuck, so that's how it stayed,'' Curtis says with a laugh. It's obvious that over the years, Curtis has become quite attached to the horse. And, he says, ''We always judge the corn crops on whether or not we can see the horse.'' He adds, ''It needs to be out where it is, where people can see it.''
And so the horse stands, subject of a wealth of stories brought on by the initial negative reaction to its presence on campus. A legend in its own time, the Iron Horse shares its history in Athens with its home in Greene County.
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January 29th, 2014
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