Cotton Exchange Lion Fountain
Savannah GA
2007

This beautiful red terra cotta winged lion fountain sits in front of the old Savannah Cotton Exchange Building on Bay Street in Savannah, Georgia.

https://www.connectsavannah.com/savannah/lion-in-wait/Content?oid=2160331

IN A CITY as historic as this one, it’s often too easy to take things for granted.

Consider the many monuments that dot Savannah’s landscape. Some seem as old as time itself, and it’s almost impossible to imagine one disappearing forever.

But on Aug. 30, one of Savannah’s most beloved statues was smashed to bits by a drunken driver. The terra cotta winged lion — a symbol of Mark the Evangelist — that once stood in front of the Cotton Exchange was gone, seemingly forever.

Since 1889, the lion had stood guard, endlessly spouting water into a fountain below. The tips of the lion’s wings had accidentally broken off in 2005, but repairs had been made.

For days afterward, pieces of terra cotta and wrought iron were found all around the area. Three windows at the Cotton Exchange were smashed by debris and the front door was damaged from the car’s impact.

Citizens and visitors alike were outraged. “I’ve worked in City Hall close to 30 years,” says Glenda Anderson, director of the city’s Research Library and Archives. “I almost never leave the building that there isn’t someone taking a photograph of the lion or having someone take a photograph of them with it. It’s one of the most beloved downtown icons we have.”

City staff immediately began searching for ways to repair the lion or replace it. “I was looking for one of two things — if there was another red lion like it still standing that we could locate, or in absence of that, any records of the company that built it and might have original plans,” Anderson says. “I came up empty-handed on both counts, even though I spent probably two weeks doing nothing but making contacts.”

The search soon spread throughout the country. “We contacted the Apheneum of Philadelphia, the Friends of Terra Cotta, the Port Amboy Public Library, the Fine Arts Library of Boston, the Winterhtur Museum in Delaware,” Anderson says. “I called the Staten Island Historical Society in New York. We called the University of Texas at Austin and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which has records on American sculpture.”

Nothing — and then a ray of hope. Anderson learned that the St. Louis Building Arts Foundation had in its collection a scrapbook with 235 illustrations of molds used by the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Co.

“This is my saddest story,” she says. “The foundation’s building is currently under renovation, and the whole collection is totally inaccessible until fall 2009. Their archivist and I both cried when she told me.”

Anderson did learn that the statue was made by the Perth Amboy Terra Cotta Co. of New Jersey. It was featured in the company’s 1889 catalogue of outdoor art and decorations and originally cost just $173. “It was a stock item,” Anderson says.

Conservators from Oberlin, Ohio, who had worked with the lion previously, were called in. “They said, ‘Yes, we think you can put the fragments back together and build another mold,’” Anderson says.

David White, director of the city’s Parks and Trees Department, says work has already begun. “We’re in the process of advertising for a conservation consultant to restore the lion,” he says. “We’ll select someone who can do a good job of restoring or replicating the fountain.”

The lion probably was never expected to last as long as it did. “Terra cotta is not a really strong material,” White says. The project will likely take months, with cost estimates ranging from $60,000 to $70,000, White says. “Our risk management department is going to try to recover the cost.”

Like others, White was shocked by the accident. “I was really sad that something irreplaceable had been destroyed,” he says. “I guess we need to get people to slow down or be more careful. I think the problem is that alcohol was involved.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savannah_Cotton_Exchange

The Savannah Cotton Exchange was established in 1876 in Savannah, Georgia, United States. Its function was to provide King Cotton factors, brokers serving planters' interest in the market, a place to congregate and set the market value of cotton exported to larger markets such as New York City or London. By the end of the 19th century, factorage was on the decline as more planters were selling their products at interior markets, thus merely shipping them from Savannah via the extensive rail connections between the city and the interior. The cotton exchange went out of business in 1951.