History

As the Capitol was going up in the late 1890s, a statue nobody had planned for showed up at the Helena train depot, unannounced. The Capitol Committee hadn't budgeted for a statue at all — but recognizing a good thing when they saw it, they hoisted her onto the dome in 1902. She'd likely been ordered by the original Capitol Site Commission, disbanded in 1897 after it came out they'd embezzled the modern equivalent of $37 million. Amid the scandal, that commission destroyed its records, so the statue's price, her maker, and even her name went with them. All that was left was an all-copper figure built around a 2-inch copper spine running the length of her body, with copper arms branching out to a copper skin — and no paperwork at all.

Life atop the dome was rough on her. A gale on the morning of January 11, 1932 twisted the statue on its base badly enough that officials feared she'd come down entirely — the state carpenter climbed up and found he "also was powerless to make Liberty more secure." A rigging crew from the Anaconda smelter had to cut a manhole into the dome to reach her, and by February 22 she was braced and bolted back into place. Crews patched a great deal of the copper skin in the process, introducing iron bracing into a body that had originally been copper through and through — bracing that, decades later, would turn out to be slowly tearing her apart from the inside.

Fifty years on, the dome's copper was failing again: inspectors sent up to check on a reported hole found numerous smaller holes, missing or loose screws, and torn or missing copper panels. The repair rode along with roughly $8 million in state construction projects approved by the 1979 Legislature, with the Anaconda Company donating new copper to patch the worn and wind-damaged sections. Two Helena men, Mike Hazen and Red Drennon, did most of the hands-on work. When it was done, Hazen couldn't resist a bit of theater: around the January 1981 inauguration of Governor Ted Schwinden, he climbed the dome and set a three-foot cardboard hat reading "TED" on the statue's head. It stayed there about a day before coming down. Hazen later called it a tribute to the new administration, "we figured it would create some interest in state government, and it sure did."

A century-old mystery solved with a phone call. A woman rang the Montana Historical Society to ask whether her grandfather's statue was still on top of the Capitol. She'd inherited the notes and designs of her grandfather: Edward J. Van Landeghem (1865–1955), a Belgian-born, Philadelphia-based sculptor. That one call from Alice Nagle solved a mystery that had stood for 104 years. The statue, it turned out, was one of Van Landeghem's favorite works, an exquisite piece of turn-of-the-century Beaux-Arts civic art. And she'd had a name all along, simply "Montana." Source https://archive.is/VsCE6#selection-4541.78-4541.228

On September 24, 2026, the state's Capitol Complex Advisory Council voted unanimously to end her hundred-and-twenty-five-year watch. The original statue is too far gone: major cracking, a crushed hat, crumbling copper and an internal frame rusting and accelerating damage. Rather than repair her, they'll scan her, cast a mold, and build a replica to stand in her place. The Montana Historical Society will take the original into its permanent collection.

There is currently no plan for the statue to ever be publicly displayed again. When she goes into storage with the Historical Society, it could mean she's out of public view for good. But I believe that with enough love and attention, we can build the momentum needed to get this great work of art placed on permanent public display.