Uncle Sam Formally Enshrined At Danbury Museum

DANBURY, CT — At long last, it's official: Uncle Sam is back home in Danbury, this time to stay. Mayor Mark Boughton was joined by various dignitaries, business leaders and Sam-fans for the 38-foot statue's dedication ceremony and enshrinement at the Danbury Railway Museum on Thursday afternoon.

"It is important for us to grab a piece of our history when we see it, and when we know it, and put things like Uncle Sam, and certainly other pieces of Danbury history... back to our city," Boughton said at the ceremony.

Grab, he did. By now the story is a familiar one. The colossus held court in front of the pre-mall Danbury Fair from 1971 to 1981, at which time it was purchased by the Magic Forest Amusement Park in Lake George, NY, and mostly forgotten. Memorabilia collectors caught wind of the statue's fate shortly before it was scheduled to be sold to the City of Troy, NY, and tipped off the mayor. A little negotiation and $50,000 later, and Uncle Sam was on a flatbed truck and Hat City bound.

The statue spent the winter in a Danbury Airport hangar before getting a make-over at Robin's Graphics in Harwinton. Social media got a little prickly in the interim, when Sam-fans didn't spot Uncle's cane, or the hand that holds it, in any of the photo teases the Mayor was tossing out regularly, and feared the worst. But the formal unveiling on Thursday not only put those fears of a disabled icon to rest, but introduced some Sam-hand-related trivia.

Danbury Director of Public Works Antonio Iadarola explained to the throng how the city's Uncle Sam was originally part of a matched set of statues commissioned by a burger joint in Toledo, OH. The business owner intended his twin Sams to hold enormous hamburgers in their outstretched hands, but gravity interfered: the sandwiches were so large, they toppled the statues onto their craggy faces. The hand was reversed, and a cane introduced, making it a win-win for fashion and physics.

Uncle Sam's hand, bereft of burger (YouTube/Kicks105.5)

Other speakers introduced by Boughton upstream of the ribbon-cutting included Paul Valeri, the trustee of the Danbury Museum and Historical Society; Cynthia Merkle, President & CEO, Union Savings Bank; and Jack Stetson, author of "The Life and Times of the Great Danbury State Fair."

Danbury's Uncle Sam — the world's largest Uncle Sam statue — can be viewed outside the Danbury Railway Museum day or night, as it's lit up like a Las Vegas fountain after dark.