Lafayette’s Bicentennial sculpture gets long-awaited dedication
‘On the Banks of the Wabash’ lights up. Plus, sessions coming on West Lafayette’s child care proposal and Greater Lafayette’s ‘pledge’ on homelessness. Another delay in solar project’s court case.
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LAFAYETTE’S BICENTENNIAL SCULPTURE GETS LONG-AWAITED DEDICATION
City officials and donors successfully timed it out to dodge a set of thunderstorms Tuesday evening that threatened to add one more delay to the dedication of “On the Banks of the Wabash,” a sweeping, stainless steel sculpture and plaza meant to mark Lafayette’s 200th birthday at the corner of South Ninth and South streets.
The artwork by California-based the Cliff Garten Studio arrived in November 2025, later than first anticipated and at the tail end of Lafayette’s Bicentennial year. But it took until the warmer spring weather to get sidewalks finished, planters placed and narrative plaques installed – along with a selfie stand to get an angle aimed toward downtown – in the past few weeks to set up Tuesday’s dedication.
“We’ve been working on this a long time,” Lafayette Mayor Tony Roswarski told donors and a team of people who shepherded the selection, placement and landscaping for the project since 2024. “Your efforts will have a lasting impression on our community.”
About the sculpture: Dennis Carson, the city’s economic development director, said the piece was chosen in 2024 from among 24 submissions to a Bicentennial Public Arts Selection Committee. “After rigorous review,” Carson said, “one stood out above the rest.” Among the features of the piece designed by Cliff Garten Studio and fabricated from 25 sheets of stainless steel by Metal Arts Foundry, a company from Lehi, Utah:
As the project rolled out, Garten said the shape and “the flowing continuous curves of the sculpture parallel the meandering path of the Wabash’s waters” – saying it was meant to be “an archway that could serve as the ‘frame’ of a stage or as the focal point for city events.”
From the original submission, Garten wrote, “by understanding the Wabash as this ever-changing element of nature we gain the perspective that it holds within its riverbed an eternity of moments, an unimaginable number of small histories that could never be expressed in one fixed moment. The Wabash is thus a symbol of constant change and a collection of the histories that have taken place in Lafayette. This symbolism is another reason we believe the Wabash would be a pertinent symbol to commemorate Lafayette’s bicentennial.”
The sculpture features excerpts from the first verse and chorus of “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” by Indiana native Paul Dresser and the state song of Indiana, laser etched into the piece. Tuesday evening, Audrey Johnson, founder of the Of Thee I Sing project, led the crowd in a rendition of the song.
The etched letters of “Lafayette” are made up of key words and phrases crowdsourced after the sculpture was commissioned through community meetings, school projects and social media. “This sculpture is quite literally built from your voices,” Carson said.
(Photo: Dave Bangert) The sculpture is lighted from the inside, so the etched words and letters are illuminated at night.
Money to pay for it: Carson said donors paid for the $500,000 commission, plus enough above that to go into a new endowment through the Community Foundation of Greater Lafayette to pay for maintenance and preservation of the piece and other public artwork in the city. (In November 2025, when pieces of “On the Banks of the Wabash” arrived and were being assembled, Carson said the city had raised roughly $943,000 in private donations.)
A time capsule: The site includes a time capsule buried with instructions to open in 2125 during Lafayette’s Tricentennial. (“We hope you can join us then,” Nate Barrett, the M.C. Tuesday night, said.) The safe includes a letter from Roswarski to his successor a century from now; a copy of “200 Years of Tippecanoe County,” a book released in 2025 to mark the Bicentennial; photographs from community events; winning poetry and essay entries from local schools; a copy of Greater Lafayette Magazine; and assorted promotional items from businesses produced to mark the 200th birthday.
The space will be available: The ground at the southwest corner of Ninth and South streets – once home to a Village Pantry convenience store and now a city pumping station – will be available to host gatherings and performances. Details on how to reserve what’s now being called Bicentennial Park are still in the works.
THIS AND THAT …
WEST LAFAYETTE SESSIONS ON EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION PROJECT: West Lafayette will host a pair of public sessions, including one Wednesday, June 17, to get feedback on priorities for an early childhood education center being considered on the northern edge of the city. The city has been looking to put an early childhood education center that could accommodate between up to 125 slots in a roughly 10,000-square-foot facility, just east of Fire Station No. 3 and across from the John Dennis Wellness Center. That followed an agreement, approved in May 2025, that saw Purdue Research Foundation donating three acres along Kalberer Road to the city. StudioAXIS, an Indianapolis-based firm hired by the city, has been studying programming, design and estimated costs, including the potential for providing third shift care. The city’s redevelopment commission has not locked in any proposal, as it considers whether a city-backed project could work.
The public sessions will be 6-8 p.m. Wednesday, June 17, and 6-8 p.m. Sept. 2, both at West Lafayette City Hall, 222 N. Chauncey Ave.
‘BEYOND THE BRIDGE’ HOMELESS CONVERSATIONS CONTINUE: Lafayette Urban Ministry and other local nonprofits will host a visit next week from James Mathy, housing administrator for Milwaukee County in Wisconsin, to discuss concepts used in his county to help curb homelessness. Mathy was featured in “Beyond the Bridge: A Solution to Homelessness,” a documentary that spurred a recent push for a “pledge” to end homelessness in Greater Lafayette.
Mathy will be part of a community open forum from 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, June 17, at Connection Point Church, 2541 Cumberland Ave. in West Lafayette. For more details, go to: www.lumserve.org/beyond-the-bridge.
ANOTHER EXTENSION IN SOLAR PROJECT CHALLENGE: This week, a judge granted another extension of time to give the companies tied to the Rainbow Trout Solar Project and the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals a chance to deal with a remaining issue they are attempting to resolve without the need for court intervention ahead of a judicial review requested in September 2025.
The companies are looking for a judge to review the Board of Zoning Appeals’ 5-4 vote in August 2025 to reject its 1,700-acre, 120-megawatt solar farm in the western part of Tippecanoe County. That case includes a group of 11 neighbors who have been allowed by a judge to intervene in the court filings to make sure their objections to the proposed project are presented. No trial date had been set, as Tippecanoe Circuit Court Judge Sean Persin this week granted an extension to July 8 to settle the matter on what materials from the BZA case will be submitted to the court. The court filings do not indicate what the sticking point is, after a series of extensions allowed by the court, dating to December.
The proposed Rainbow Trout solar project prompted a recent review of Tippecanoe County’s utility-scale solar zoning codes. Here’s more on those and more on the request for judicial review:
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Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.