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Home   >   News   >   Local News   >   Statue of Iowa Pioneer James Harlan to Return Home

Statue of Iowa Pioneer James Harlan to Return Home

By on March 15, 2013

The Iowa House has voted to let a statue that has been standing in the U.S. Capitol for decades be on “permanent loan” to Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant.

 

The likeness of James Harlan has been one of two statues from the State of Iowa on display in the capitol building, but the House has voted to send Harlan’s statue to Iowa Wesleyan in 2014.   The State of Iowa will pick up the tab for transporting the statue from Washington, D.C. to Mount Pleasant.

Original plans had called for bringing the Harlan statue to the state capitol in Des Moines in 2014. Now that the Iowa House has voted to send it to Mount Pleasant, senators must vote on the proposal, too, before the deal is done.

Harlan became president of Iowa Wesleyan in 1853. He began serving in the U.S. Senate in 1855. Harlan died in Mount Pleasant in 1899 and that’s also where he is buried.