Wheeling’s Doughboy Monument has stood guard at Wheeling Park, day and night, season after season, since Memorial Day, 1931. Those nine decades of fluctuating heat and humidity, snow and ice, and rain and wind, combined with unfortunate acts of vandalism have taken a heavy toll.
Missing his rifle, covered with dents and dings, his pressed copper surface pale green with corrosion, our Doughboy was badly in need of a makeover. And even as you read these words, he’s getting just that.
This past November, the Wheeling Doughboy Restoration Committee made arrangements with veteran conservator Giorgio Gikas of the Detroit-based Venus Bronze Works, Inc., to restore the statue to a condition as close as possible to the original. Gikas, who recently completed an 11-foot tall bronze RoboCop statue for the Motor City, has restored at least seven other Doughboy statues throughout the Midwest.
Gikas will correct unsuccessful past repairs. He will also replace missing elements like the rifle and the barbed wire, and clean and wax the sculpture to a dark green to olive-green patina with black and bronze background. When all this work is completed, the Doughboy will be returned to Wheeling in time for a Memorial Day 2020 re-installation.
Consider Donating to the Doughboy Restoration
In the meantime, the pedestal will be refreshed with cleaning and resetting of the granite back. A wheelchair-accessible walkway will be added as well as new landscaping in the area surrounding the statue.
Of course, all of this costs money. The Wheeling Doughboy Restoration Committee asks that you consider supporting this worthy project. As the engraving on the Wheeling Doughboy’s granite base reminds us, this monument was dedicated in honor of “all who served.” This includes the hundreds of Wheeling men and women, who went off to fight in 1917-18, many of whom did not return from that terrible war. In the years since, the monument has come to symbolize the sacrifice and service of all veterans.
To donate, please mail a check in any amount payable to Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley, 1226 Chapline Street, Wheeling, WV 26003. Please write “Doughboy Monument Restoration Fund” in the memo line. If you’d like to dedicate your donation to a particular veteran, please include name, service branch, and rank. You can also donate online by visiting the Wheeling Doughboy GoFundMe page at charity.gofundme.com/dough-fund-me or by Googling “Dough Fund Me Wheeling.”
