2026 is America's Semiquincentennial But this ain't our first... ...ennial While Indiana was barely an idea in 1776, Hoosiers have celebrated their country in many Hoosier ways since becoming a state.

In 1892, our only resident to become president.

Benjamin Harrison proclaimed that we let the national flag float over every schoolhouse in the country.

Why, just 50 years ago, in 1976, South Bend took a break from the disco and painted their fire hydrants to look like Revolutionary War heroes.

Alexander Hamilton never looked so gratifyingly adorable!

But in the southern county of Lawrence home to Bedford and Oolitic Something underground was waiting centuries to be brought out.

and fashioned into a titanic tribute to our patriotic origins.

Whatever could this something be?

Limestone Lawrence County was the, like most southern Indiana counties, an agrarian county.

And then suddenly, people became aware that the stone underneath our feet, was good for building.

that's where the Indiana limestone industry in Lawrence County developed.

And it was a huge, huge thing!

We had all these Italian, carvers here that were basically brought from Italy At the turn of the century, when the limestone industry was booming here in Bedford, they would send recruiters out to the big cities to find the Italian carvers.

And so they found my great grandfather in Brooklyn, New York, and recruited him to come to Bedford, Indiana, to do carvings.

This limestone capital of the world was home to many amazing carvers, but one in particular continued honing his craft into his 90s.

Frank Arena Jr.

my grandfather actually carved the reliefs on that bank back in the day, when the industry was booming, people would ask the carvers to add a little ornamentation to their buildings, the process was an apprentice journeyman and master carver.

And I remember as a young man that every time we would drive through downtown my grandfather would tell me about the Masonic Lodge here the capitals, which is the very top of the columns he did those as his passage from a journeyman to a master carver.

That was his final project, I said, “do you consider yoursel an artist or a craftsman?” he said, “well, I guess I was a craftsman because I never put my name on the work like an artist would.” In 1973, Indiana's lieutenant governor asked, “What do you folks from Bedford intend to do to celebrate the bicentennial?” With less than three years ago, the manager of their Chamber of Commerce knew just what they could provide.

Theres one of those special times in everyone's life, I think.

When we were celebrating the bicentennial year.

Merle Edington thought big, And he had this idea to present something made out of local limestone to the nation.

this.

There's this 1851 painting, by Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze a German American immigrant, of Washington Crossing the Delaware on Christmas 1776.

Washington and his men stayed sober, you know, 2400 of them, they surprised the Hessian mercenaries who were probably deep into their cups, you know, that was the first big win.

And everything went better after that for the Continental Army.

And so it was agreed to carve a life sized version of that out of local limestone.

it cost about $100,000 to do, and that was raised locally.

Apparently.

I've never seen an accounting of who gave what.

It didn't matter.

because that's over $500,000.

Now, that's a huge a huge budget!

you know, for a community celebration, Arena was already a really, really accomplished carver at this point.

But I'm sure that a project of this size must have made his eyes open pretty wide I think he was more focused on “how do I take this two dimensional Leutze painting and make it a three dimensional statue and life size of all that?” which may not sound that hard to those of us who don't know how that works, but I'm sure that was a huge challenge.

you know, he was always someone I looked up to.

And I would always watch him in the basement doing his carvings as well as his models, because carvers don't just start chipping away at the stone.

They use a model first he started with a half scale model done in clay.

Clay being, as we know, cheaper than limestone he did a boat and he did 12 figures, one of them being George Washington and the others being various members of the crew of that little boat.

and he envisioned the ice on the Delaware River, this is a monster, of a stone carving.

It weighed 40 tons.

So just moving something that heavy across the country.

I mean, [sounds of shock] The limestone ship sailed out on the highway for the entire month of June 76 looking for adventure in a sort of reverse migration east it stuck to the old national road that was used by, you know, a huge number of pioneers back in the day First stopping in Indianapolis, then to Richmond, Indiana.

Over to Columbus, Ohio, Wheeling, West Virginia, Washington, Pennsylvania.

Bedford, Pennsylvania.

Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, and then its resting place for now half a century.

Well, it's called a gift to the nation.

But in fact, where it ended up was in Washington Crossing, Pennsylvania, right on the Delaware River near the spot where Washington was said to have launched all those boats really ambitious.

I mean, Merle Edington, you know, I salute you.

For its dedication ceremony on July 5th, The Bedford North Lawrence High School Band played ‘On the Banks of the Wabash, and Eddington stressed that we have a responsibility to hand down the heritage of freedom to future generations.

According to master carver Frank Arena Junior, “it was probably the favorite of my carvings.

It was also the most difficult and challenging to do.” Conjuring elegance from ancient stone is not a lost art.

Quarries in the area are still unearthing limestone and stone cutters are still splitting, fabricating, and carving for the many exteriors of tomorrow.

As USA 250 approaches, along with fireworks, parades and theatrical performances, Lawrence County will also dig up their 1976 time capsules.

I wonder if they'll find that half size clay model?!

Perhaps some Bicentennial coins?

If nothing else, they are bound to uncover some more local limestone, AKA Indiana Rocks.

U. S. A. two... fifty Funding for this video was made in part by a community engagement grant around the American Revolution, a film by Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt.

You can stream the full film starting November 16th on the PBS app.

We'd like to thank the following funders.