Popular Stone Dog sculpture vanished from the park in 1987, but a successor is now in place and already entertaining kids as a friendly back to climb upon.
A much loved dog is back, and Springfield Central High history teacher Caitlin Welz couldn’t be happier. The dog went missing 25 years ago from Forest Park, and Springfield children like Welz, who was four in 1987, were desolate over the disappearance of their friend. The 100-year-old canine had entertained kids through generations, always ready to greet and play, no questions asked, until one day the 1,000 pound Stone Dog just vanished.
The original Stone Dog in Forest Park. The recently installed Stone Dog II in Forest Park. The stop resulted in the creation of a new dog, through a Pennsylvania firm, where artisans, using technology and old photos Welz had, made a clay mold to help with the carving of the replica.
“It brought a little tear to my eye,” said Welz, who borrowed his son’s truck to bring Stone Dog II to Springfield. It was installed near the zoo last week, and, Welz said, “its head is already dirty from kids playing on it.”
“It’s every little kid’s pet dog,” said Welz, who grew up on Virginia Street next door to Forest Park, and began playing on the first Stone Dog as a toddler.
The original dog sat on a stone platform, and was about 4-feet long, 2-feet wide and 2 1/2-feet high. It vanished from a maintenance yard in the park, where it had been temporarily moved for construction of the zoo.
It started life as a “sentinel” in the city’s Six Corners’ neighborhood in the 19th century, according to newspaper records. The dog was moved to Forest Park around 1909.
A story, in the Springfield Union of Jan. 12, 1934, refers to “that dog” as “making friends ever since 1888, or 1889, when it first appeared, in Springfield, as the sentinel of a fountain erected by public-spirited citizens on the triangle at Pine and Mill Streets.”
The clipping adds the dog “soon became a favorite with children of the neighborhood.”
“On summer days it was a popular rendezvous. They used to climb on its back, and dangle their feet in the cool waters of the fountain,” the report notes. It also notes that the dog “spouted water from its mouth, and the children soon discovered that by sticking their fingers in its mouth, they could squirt water all over themselves and passers-by. That side of the junction came to be avoided by pedestrians.”
Stone Dog II in Forest Park. When the fountain was removed from the Mill-Pine Street triangle, the dog was moved to the park, and placed near the original zoo, where, according to the 1934 article, it was “as much of a favorite with many children as the live animals. They didn’t consider that they had seen the sights unless they had perched themselves on the dog’s back.”
The dog was taken from public sight in 1930s, but was restored to an area near what was then Paddle Pond and is now the swimming pool, by none other than the father of Dr. Seuss, Theodor R. Geisel, who was superintendent of parks at the time. Geisel found the granite dog, among the “odds and ends” of the park. He perhaps shared his famous son’s enjoyment of storybook-inspiring characters.
When a reporter wrote to Dr. Seuss, in 1988, to inquire about his knowledge of the Stone Dog, the author-illustrator wrote a note from his California home saying he had never met the dog, but the note featured the Cat-in-the Hat with a cartoon balloon saying, “I’m keeping a sharp eye out for dogs . . . especially stone ones.”
The original dog had different locations at the park, including near what is now the hockey rink, but was once a playground, and on the far side of the Rose Garden, near the old zoo.
At the time the dog vanished, first- and second-grade students at Sumner Avenue School, encouraged by Kevin Welz, sent then Mayor Richard E. Neal posters and picture books about the lost Stone Dog.
Neal called the disappearance of the dog, which had apparently been last seen in a fenced-in area of the maintenance yard behind the administration building, as “something right out of Sherlock Holmes.” The dog had apparently been moved there because of the construction of the new zoo.
Caitlin Welz paid tribute to her dad’s efforts.
“Honestly, he’s the reason that I’m so excited about the new dog,” Welz said. “He never stopped wondering about the old dog, and every few years he’d call the parks department to see if anyone had heard anything about it. He did a lot of research on it at the library and archives, and found most of the photographs that were used to craft the new one. It seems like a small thing to care about — a statue of a dog, in the grand scheme of things, but I guess it was always encouraging to see that it’s OK to value a small piece of local history like that.”
Patrick J. Sullivan, the city’s director of parks, buildings, and recreation management, also praised Welz’s dad.
“All the credit goes to Kevin Welz. He came to us. He had done the research. It’s part of the history of the park,” said Sullivan of the park’s willingness to pay for Stone Dog II, with money from the Edward and William Walker Trust Fund and the Everett Barney Trust.
Sullivan said it remains unknown how original dog vanished.
Kevin Welz and Margaret Humberston, now head of library and archives for the Lyman and Merriam Wood Museum of Springfield History, did much research together back in 1988, documenting Stone Dog’s literary and historical pedigree. They found the following poem about the dog in a book called “Peggy in the Park.”
The book, published in 1933 by Springfield-based Milton Bradley, was written by the late William G. Ballantine, a biblical scholar at Springfield College. Illustrating the poem is a sketch of the Stone Dog by A. B. Tufts.
“I love the stone dog;
I can climb on his back,
For he never is cross, never growls.
He lets me make free
With his ears and his nose,
And when I pull his tail, never howls.”
Reporter Peter Goonan contributed to this story.