Cairo dedicates Lewis and Clark sculpture

~ The artwork was paid for largely by a $30,000 grant from the Library of Congress to SIU.

CAIRO, Ill. -- While thrilled to be entrusted with creating a memorial to Lewis and Clark's brief visit two centuries ago to this outpost near where the Mississippi and Ohio rivers meet, Evertt Beidler found the work itself to be a bit of an adventure.

The Southern Illinois University art graduate student built the 12-foot, 1,100-pound sculpture of stainless steel and bronze inlays in a school building that lacked the right hoisting equipment for such a massive project. As a result, Beidler did a lot of improvising.

"This was not a project that I received a grade on, but it undoubtedly will make a big contribution to my portfolio," said Beidler, 30.

His sculpture got high marks Wednesday, when about 30 people -- including SIU, local and county officials -- gathered in windy, cold weather on a knob of land in the riverfront Fort Defiance State Park to dedicate the memorial, which mimics an elevated compass.

SIU Chancellor Walter Wendler noted that Wednesday marked the 200th anniversary of Lewis and Clark reaching the Pacific Ocean.

"What we celebrate today is the history of accomplishment and a future full of promise," Wendler said.

The artwork was commissioned two years ago and paid for largely by a $30,000 grant from the Library of Congress to SIU.

The sculpture is a steel dish, 8 feet in diameter and hoisted into the air by three metal legs. Around the dish's rim are eight bronze markers, each noting a compass direction. The largest marker -- three feet long and pyramid in shape -- points northward up the Mississippi, the direction Meriwether Lewis and William Clark headed after spending five days here in mid-November 1803 after gathering data and beginning the effort of mapping their river route to the Pacific Ocean.

Lewis and Clark's famed 8,000-mile exploration, launched near St. Louis, took them through the uncharted wilds of the West and back again -- a journey being recreated as part of a bicentennial celebration. During their encampment near here, the explorers cross-trained each other, with Lewis learning celestial navigation and Clark getting schooled on land surveying, said Bob Swenson, an SIU associate professor of architecture.

"I had no idea honestly they spent time in Illinois until I got there," said artist Beidler, who came to SIU at Carbondale from Portland, Ore. -- coincidentally the state Lewis and Clark trekked to before heading back to the St. Louis area.

The sculpture, installed in August, complements Lewis and Clark exhibits at the town's library and 133-year-old Custom House, a former federal building converted into a museum meant to draw tourists to this decaying town of about 3,600 by trumpeting the area's rich past.

Cairo also once served as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's headquarters in the Civil War's early years before he thrust Union troops into the South. Steamboats helped make this community a vital transportation nexus. In the late 1800s, combined river and rail shipments gave Cairo the nation's highest per-capita commercial valuation.

The sculpture "is just a really fun thing to be associated with for all of us here," said Swenson, the SIU professor. "Our point is to do everything we can to try to enhance the public view and quality of what Cairo and the confluence are. We think it's a marvelous city and history."

Cairo Mayor Paul Farris attend the memorial's dedication.

"We look upon this as hopefully the turning point that Cairo and southern Illinois has been longing for," he said.