'This is certainly a mystery': In search of Sheboygan's lost statue of 'Hope'

SHEBOYGAN, Wis. (CBS 58) -- A piece of history is now a mystery.

"There's just so many possibilities that could have happened," said Tamara Lange. "It just seems so surreal that it would simply disappear into thin air, but that kind of seems to be what has happened." 001703

Sheboygan residents of a certain age may remember a signature image of old downtown: a statue of a woman, sitting atop a white building on 8th street.

"Kind of your typical woman, dressed in robes, has a very, you know, stoic pose, straight backed, just kind of looking out over everything that can be seen in the area," Lange said.

Her name was Hope - 500 pounds of white marble, four and a half feet tall, looking east over downtown with an anchor in her right hand.

"When you looked up, that was one of the kinds of quintessential things you saw along the skyline of 8th street, was the statue of Hope," Lange said.

Lange is the curator of collections and exhibits at the Sheboygan County Historical Museum.

She is as close as you can find to an "expert" on Hope, who she says sat atop the Scheele Monument Company building.

"Monuments, statues, gravestones, obviously some of our local monuments that were tributes were done by Scheele," Lange explained.

Ironically, Hope wasn't built by the famous sculptor family.

"Hope actually comes into the picture in 1885, when they are opening in this building their monument company located in downtown," Lange said. "Henry Scheele Sr. actually sends to Italy to have this statue made and then shipped back over."

That's where she stayed for 88 years until 1973, when the entire downtown corridor was re-developed.

"There's a number of buildings along that block that end up being torn down essentially for this new library to go in," Lange explained. "There's a lot of concern at that point, what is going to happen to the statue of Hope?"

The statue was taken down and stored in the Sheboygan Municipal Services building.

"The agreement was that Hope would be held onto, and a new home would be found once all of this construction is done," Lange said.

After five years in storage, a restored Hope returned to her old neighborhood, outside of the Mead Public Library.

A dedication ceremony was held in august of 1978, as part of the city's 125th anniversary.      

"It kind of returns to that same place but in a new way and in a different point of view for people," Lange said. "So, not on top of the building, but on the property from where she came."

She went from looking over the city to eye-level with its citizens, and that's where she stayed for about ten years.

"Obviously, being a little bit lower, it is subject to a new damage component, which is occasional vandalism," Lange explained.

In 1988, the vandalism got out of hand.

"If they would like to preserve it, they need to take it back down before the damage is too far along," Lange said.

It's believed Hope was taken apart into pieces and again brought to the Municipal Services building.

After a few years without her, Lange says the library asked the city about bringing her back, and that's where the story turns.

"At that point in time, it's basically gone missing. They can't figure out where it is. It's not where they thought it had been stored," she said. "Ever since 1994, there's been kind of this undercurrent of, what happened to the Hope statue."

She's heavy, she's large, she couldn't have been easy to move, but somehow, Sheboygan has lost Hope.

"We've been through pretty much every nook and cranny that a five-foot, 500-pound statue would be in, and I have yet to find it," Lange laughed.

She hasn't turned up in 33 years, but very once in a while, someone asks what happened to her.

"All it takes is one person to say 'hey, I remember when I was a kid seeing the hope statue on top of the Scheele building, whatever happened to that?'" Lange said.

Just because Hope is lost doesn't mean she's forgotten.

"One of the things that I love about working in history and working museum is seeing people's connection to things, to objects, to their experiences." Lange said. "I think this is one of those items that there's just a lot of connections to, and it goes back generations."

Theories have changed over the years.

In a 2008 article, journalist Bill Wengemann writes an anonymous source told him Hope was loaded on a truck with broken concrete and sent to a landfill, but it's unknown if the claim is true.

"The further we get away from it, the more difficult that also becomes, because some of the people that would have been involved at the time aren't here anymore," Lange said.

As people like Lange share what they know and what they don't, at least history will keep Hope alive.

"We are inherently fascinated by mysteries, and this is certainly a mystery, what happened to Hope?" Lange said.