Let Freedom Shine! The story of the Statue of Liberty in Belton’s Memorial Park

By Ben McCarthy

Evening visitors to Memorial Park in Belton may have begun noticing recently that the 8-foot-tall Statue of Liberty replica is glowing again at night thanks to the efforts of the Belton Parks & Recreation maintenance team. Assistant Director Vanda Meehan says the team fixed the statue’s torch in June, allowing visitors to see Lady Liberty after sunset, once again.

The statue was donated to the park in 2016 by Roy Sawyer of Raymore. Sawyer, now 76, had come upon the statue about 40 years ago during a road trip that took him and his wife through Thayer, KS, a tiny town in southeast Kansas. He and his wife, Susan, found it on display at a now defunct antiques barn called Harmes. Sawyer immediately envisioned acquiring the statue to have at his parents’ home in Spring Hill, KS, but the statue’s owner had a price tag on it that was well beyond what he could afford.

“My mom’s family immigrated from England in the late 1800’s, and went through Ellis Island,” Sawyer said. “Her dad’s name is on the wall there, and she had always had a deep love for the Statue of Liberty.”

Sawyer’s mother moved with her parents to Kansas in the 1940’s while still completing high school and would never again return to New York. Determined to successfully negotiate a deal with the statue’s owner, Sawyer and his father returned to Thayer, KS. Sawyer says they found the statue’s owner was suddenly much more receptive during this second encounter, as a result of an auto accident, and he ultimately accepted an offer of $1000 to part ways with the statue.

The statue, weighing hundreds of pounds, was loaded up and driven over 90 minutes up 169 Highway to Spring Hill, where it would reside in Sawyer’s parents front yard for three decades.

“It became very well known in Spring Hill. People would just drive up to my parents’ house and take pictures with it,” Sawyer said. “It’s fun getting to see people do the same thing here.”

Just like the real Statue of Liberty, this 8-foot-tall homage, holds a tablet in her left hand, with the inscription “July IV MDCCLXXVI” (1776), the date America declared its independence. Sawyer recalls one occasion where the statue mysteriously vanished from his parents home, but it was soon retrieved after being located “hiding” in a nearby wheatfield by a school bus driver.

After working at Honeywell for 46 years, Sawyer retired in 2014 and soon found himself assisting his parents as they transitioned out of their longtime Spring Hill home. He reached out to Perry Gough, who was then President of the Parks & Rec board with an idea to relocate the statue to Belton.

“We just so happened to be in the midst of an expansion effort at Memorial Parks with the trails and pond,” Gough said. “We were thrilled that he wanted to donate something so unique — I have never seen one quite like it.”

Gough and another employee from Parks & Rec had to use a skid steer to load the unwieldy statue onto a flatbed trailer and haul it from Spring Hill to Belton in 2016. Gough and Sawyer were happy to find a place for it near Carnegie Village Senior Community, where residents can now see the illuminated statue from their back dining area.

Sawyer, whose dad was a WWII veteran, and whose mother’s ancestral military lineage goes back to the Civil War, says he looks forward to quietly visiting the park this week and observing the many families of veterans posing with the fully-functioning statue that occupied his parents front yard for decades.