Brief by Central Staff
Salida Yards – December 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
The two statues above are on the grounds of the Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center (although they are indoors by now, since they go inside for the winter.)
The “Boy with the Boot” appeared in a 1902 photo of what was then the Railroad Hospital, and the two sculptures were rediscovered in a tunnel under the hospital in 1981 by Keith Surber and Bob Moore.
Surber later found another Boy with the Boot in a fountain in Washington Park in Sandkusky, Ohio; that one was made in 1895.
May Fanning donated money for their initial restoration, and they were most recently refurbished by artist Randy Danforth in 2002.
As for the little cherubs on the right, you’re welcome to guess where Russo found them.
