The statue of a Muncie businessman that has been missing since the 1960s returned to Muncie Wednesday night.
Charles Francis Willard lived in Muncie from 1831-1871. In 1886, his wife and son wanted a statue of him on their new building.
Willard’s statue was carved out of Indiana limestone and stayed on top of the Willard building until the building was demolished in the 1960s. The statue is eight feet tall and around 1600 pounds. Willard’s statue was removed and taken to the south side of Muncie. The other three statues remain on the Delaware County Building today.
A year or two after the statue was removed, it disappeared from Muncie.
“We didn’t know, nobody really knew where he was,” Bob Good, Delaware County Historical Society board director, said.
Fred Petty, the former president of Ball Stores and grandson of Frank Ball, one of the five Ball Brothers who founded Ball State, tracked down Willard and traveled to a Tennessee flea market to try to get him back.
“He tried to purchase the statue back and the gentleman that owned the flea market refused to sell and we kinda lost track of him there,” Good said.
Good found newspaper articles mentioning Petty’s trip to Tennessee, but the town was never mentioned.
The statue reminded on citizens’ minds in the community during the search. On July 12, 1999, a column written by Muncie resident Phil Ball appeared in The Star Press titled “Won’t someone bring Charles Willard back home to Muncie?” Ball tells the story of Willard, the Willard building and Petty’s trip to Tennessee. Three streets in downtown Muncie- Charles, Adams and Willard were named for the family. Adams is the middle name of Charles Willard’s son.
“I was one of several people that had hunted for the statue over the years. I’m just the lucky one that finally found him,” Good said.
At some point, the Chattanooga Choo Choo in Chattanooga, Tennessee acquired the statue, but they didn’t know who the statue was. Jeff Cannon of Tucker Build grew up in Chattanooga and spent five or six years thinking the statue was Jack Daniels because someone told him that’s who it was.
“For me, it wasn’t like Chattanooga had this unified story on who the statue was. It was almost sort of like whoever you were with at the Choo Choo at the time, the very first time you sort of experienced it, someone said oh, and that’s so-and-so,” Cannon said. “There’s not one story or two stories here in Chattanooga about the statue, there’s a thousand stories on who he was.”
One day, Good googled “statues in Tennessee” and found Willard at the Choo Choo. They contacted the Choo Choo and they asked for proof that the statue was who Good said. They sent proof, and the Choo Choo agreed. After a year of negotiations, Willard was brought home.
“Nobody up here knew where he was, and nobody down there knew who he was,” Good said.
Cannon is the general contractor for a few projects at the Choo Choo and said his company frequently supports local organizations. Because of the Choo Choo’s history, the focus on giving back during the projects was historical preservation organizations. Tucker Build initially thought to make a donation to bring Willard home, but then he found out the issue was moving the statue back to Muncie.
“Every day as we walk in we’re greeted by this statue, let’s see if we can get this statue back to where it belongs,” Cannon said. “They don’t have the ability to transport it. For us, then, it was an easy thing. We got all sorts of equipment, we’re not short on manpower … a couple weeks later, I’m in the truck, with it loaded up and a trailer behind me driving up [to Muncie].”
As Cannon began to talk about moving the statue, the community talked, too.
“In the last couple weeks … there’s not a single person that I said ‘oh, you know that statue at the Choo Choo? I’m going to crate him and take him back home,’ I didn’t encounter a single person that said ‘what statue?’” Cannon said. “Certainly everyone knew of it … outside of the dome at the Choo Choo itself … it’s where every tour bus stopped. When you got off the tour bus, the first thing that you saw before these amazing gardens and before this amazing building, you saw this 8 foot statue of a dude just randomly placed … greeting any visitor who came in the side.”
The Delaware County Historical Society brought a few gifts to Chattanooga in exchange for the statue- including a custom drawing from Garfield creator Jim Davis and Ball jars.
When Good saw the statue, he was in awe.
“Our pictures were only black and white ones from the newspaper, and they really didn’t show very much detail, but the statue really is beautifully carved and has a lot of fine detail to it,” Good said. “It’s one of the nicest statues I think I’ve ever seen.”
Good said the Historical Society will look for any of Willard’s family members. Charles Willard’s statue will permanently be at the Delaware County Historical Society, located at 120 E. Washington St in downtown Muncie.
“He belongs to Delaware County and Muncie. He’s part of our history, a very early part of the history of both Muncie and Delaware County. We’re very grateful to the people in Tennessee to allow him to come back home to where he started.”
