The Man, the Leader, the Statue
When residents of Wapello County, Iowa, mention Chief Wapello, sometimes they mean the Native American who is the county’s namesake — chief of the confederated tribes of Sacs and Foxes and the successor of Chief Black Hawk of Black Hawk War fame. And sometimes they mean the sheet-copper statue of a Native American which stands atop the roof of the Wapello County Courthouse. Though he’s affectionately called Chief Wapello, the statue wears a war bonnet of a sort that the peace-loving chief of the Sac and Fox would never have donned.
Chief Wapello: The Man, The Leader, The Statue looks at the real chief’s life and his leadership at the time when the land which became Iowa was transferred out of Native American hands. And it surveys the history of the statue which has become his namesake, standing atop the courthouse for 120 years before a windstorm knocked him from his pedestal, through the major restoration needed before he once again took his place overlooking the Des Moines River Valley.
Michael W. Lemberger received more than a hundred national and state awards during seventeen years as a newspaper photographer. He worked in film, video, and digital media as well as creating pen-and-ink drawings. He taught photo seminars at the University of Iowa and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and was a well-known archivist of historical photographs; after his death in 2016, The Lemberger Collection was donated by his family to the University of Iowa Libraries.
Leigh Michaels is the author of more than 100 books, including 80 contemporary romance novels, a dozen historical romance novels, non-fiction books about writing, and local history books. More than 35 million copies of her books have been printed in 25 languages around the world. She is a six-time finalist in the Romance Writers of America RITA contest, and was honored by Iowa Library Association with the Johnson Brigham Award for an Iowa author making a contribution to literature world-wide. For more information about her, visit her website at www.leighmichaels.com.
86 pages, illustrated in color and black and white