Tale of the tee: Harrisburg War Eagles

In March 1919, four months after Armistice Day, thousands of people got a glimpse of a model for a new bridge in Harrisburg “to commemorate the valor and bravery of the Keystone State’s sons in the war with Germany,” according to the Evening News newspaper.

It would “connect the brow of East Harrisburg with the mall in the new Capitol Park.” On the west end, sculptures would grace the two massive pylons.

But completing the project turned out to be a bridge too far for more than a decade. The “relief figures” for the tops of the pylons were still not determined at least as late as 1928, three years into construction.

Dedication of the Sailors’ and Soldiers’ Memorial Bridge finally occurred in August 1930, closer to the start of World War II than the end of the First World War.

254-ton birds

The wait was worth it, however, the 1,312-foot arched bridge remaining an architectural and engineering marvel now more than 90 years later.

What is also known as the State Street Bridge — spanning Norfolk Southern/Amtrak rail lines, Paxton Creek and North Cameron Street — joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

And this year, Stay is recognizing the bridge, specifically the two 254-ton limestone birds atop the pylons, with our Harrisburg War Eagles Tee.

The completed bridge was different from the decade-earlier model: proposed memorial halls in each pylon, described as being 20 feet square, 25 feet high and staffed by a guide, weren’t included in the final iteration.

The pylons ended up being more than double the original height.

Vintage postcard featuring the west end, the eagles facing the state capital building.

The eagles were the vision of German-born sculptor Lee Lawrie, whose work you likely know even if you have never heard of him: consulting on the design of the American dime, which features President Franklin D. Roosevelt in profile and debuted seven months prior to the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Bridge; his 45-foot-tall statue of Atlas at Rockefeller Center that often appeared on the TV show “30 Rock.”

Lawrie arrived in Chicago with his family when he was a young child. As a teen-ager, he worked as an assistant to various sculptors, including their work for Chicago’s notorious 1893 World’s Fair, the so-called “White City” exposition.

After earning a fine arts degree from Yale, he taught there and at Harvard, becoming one of the most influential sculptors of the art deco era. Upon Lawrie’s arrival in Harrisburg, city newspapers noted that his completed works stretched from Yale to the Nebraska state capital to the Los Angeles Library.

In Pennsylvania, his projects included statues of Union generals at the Pennsylvania Monument at Gettysburg National Military Park and the facade of the Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance (now Perelman) building in Philadelphia.

But the Harrisburg war eagles were on a different scale altogether: each one the height of a three-story home. They arrived in Harrisburg by rail, traveling some 600 miles from Bedford, Ind., dubbed the “Limestone Capital of the World” for its large quarries, in the first half of May 1930.

The west eagle

The model for our tee design, this “war eagle” adorns the top of the west pylon.

“The war eagles are of amazing size,” marveled chief engineer Frank St. Clair, according to Harrisburg Telegraph. “ … They constitute the biggest piece of work of this type ever attempted in America and will constitute one of the Capitol’s chief show pieces.”

The Evening News described the eagles as “being among the most massive ever cut out for any public works in the country.” They were so big, in fact, that nothing could “lift the birds as a whole to the top of the pylons,” so instead a derrick raised them in 12 sections each.

One contemporary account put the new eagles at 27 feet high and the top of their heads 145 feet above the “bridge drive.” Wikipedia says the eagles are 21 feet high, on top of 145-foot pylons.

Lee Lawrie

The sculptor’s photo in the Harrisburg Telegraph, June 1930.

Whatever the precise measurements, the pylon/eagle combo is slightly taller than the Statue of Liberty (minus its pedestal). The eagles are each one-third to half the height of George Washington’s head on Mount Rushmore.

Lawrie got his first glimpse of the eagles in their final perch that June.

“My purpose was to produce something highly individual as well as symbolic, and to give Harrisburg and Pennsylvania a memorial unlike anything else anywhere in the world — at once distinctive and beautiful,” Lawrie said, according to the Telegraph newspaper.

His intent was to give the appearance of the eagles “having been carved out of the stone on top of the pylons — an integral part of the design rather than the appearance of ornaments set on top of the pylons,” he said. Their heads were “thrown back in bold defiance.”

Lawrie’s legacy

The sculptor made regular appearances in the pages of the New York Times in the years ahead, his work in Harrisburg an important part of his growing legacy. An article in June 1932 reported on Lawrie’s selection to adorn the entrance to the RCA Building at Rockefeller Center.

“Among Mr.’s Lawrie’s important previous works are the tower and archway of the Harkness Quadrangle at Yale University,” the Times wrote, “the main entrance to the Louisiana State Capital and ornamentation of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Bridge, Harrisburg Pa.”