You will be visiting 2 statues of Benjamin Franklin that were placed on campus at Franklin College. One is the iconic marble statue at the edge of campus and the other is a bronze sculpture near the center of campus. You will need to post a picture at both statues to claim the find.
To log this virtual, post a picture of yourself (face not required) or a personal item with both Big Ben and Sitting Ben.
The 12-foot-tall (including the base) Benjamin Franklin statue was sculpted from solid marble by artist John M. Mahoney, who was 19 years old at the time. It was originally placed on the Franklin Insurance Company building on the Monument Circle in 1874. The 8 foot statue sculpted by John Mahoney drew large crowds when it was first unveiled, as it was John’s first piece of work this large. The Statue of Ben sat in its original location for 55 years until the building was demolished. In 1929 the statue was moved to look over the International Typographical Union headquarters. Once again the statue lost its home to the building being demolished in 1967. It was displayed at the Indianapolis headquarters of the International Typographical Union until they moved to Colorado in 1963.
The union donated the statue to Franklin College. Workers installed it on a limestone base on campus on Jan. 17, 1963, on what would have been Franklin's 257th birthday. In 1963, the statue was valued at $3,000.
The statue was then donated to Franklin College where it still sits today. For many years students at the college would paint and decorate Ben to match the season or sports team, but in July of 2014 Drake Construction was hired to remove the years and layers of paint from the statue.
At the heart of the Franklin College campus is a bronze of Benjamin Franklin seated on a park bench looking over the Declaration of Independence. A pair of small birds sit opposite him on the left. The bronze was produced by George Lundeen (Lundeen Sculpture) in 2004. The bronze is masterfully rendered and is maintained.
To log this virtual, post a picture of yourself (face not required) or a personal item with both Big Ben and Sitting Ben.
Please leave the following text at the bottom of the page, so cache finders understand the Virtual Rewards 3.0 project.
Virtual Rewards 3.0 - 2022-2023
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between March 1, 2022 and March 1, 2023. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 3.0 on the Geocaching Blog.