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Statue of Senator James Harlan Returns Home

After spending 104 years in Washington D.C., a sculpture of James Harlan returns to his hometown Mount Pleasant, Iowa.  Harlan was a U.S. senator and a member of President Andrew Johnson’s cabinet, but he is most remembered in Iowa as an influential college president of what is now called Iowa Wesleyan College.

After his death in 1899, the Iowa legislature commissioned a statue of him for the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall.  Every state is allowed two, and earlier this year Harlan’s statue was replaced with one of Doctor Norman Borlaug, a scientist noted for breakthroughs in agriculture.  Harlan’s statue will stay indefinitely on the campus of Wesleyan College.

John Pemble is a reporter for IPR