Prints and Photographs Collection

Mark White

The Goddess of Liberty statue had perched atop the Capitol dome since February 1888. The zinc statue was 16 feet high and beckoned from 311 feet above the ground. Her strong features are designed to be viewed from that distance.

By the 1980s, the entire Capitol building had become shabby, and the Goddess herself was cracked and corroded. A 1983 fire that badly damaged the east wing provided the impetus for a complete renovation. The State Preservation Board was formed to undertake the project, and their first order of business was to replace the Goddess statue.

The original was removed and a new aluminum statue cast from molds made from the original. On May 29, 1986, the new statue was unveiled. Replacing the statue on the dome proved to be a more difficult task than at first thought, and Texas eventually had to request help from the Mississippi National Guard, which had the special "skycrane" helicopter needed to do the job.

The original Goddess was restored and today resides at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. The entire Goddess project cost $450,000, all of which was paid for by private donations, including many donations from Texas schoolchildren.

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