Project developing for restoration of vandalized Land Park statue

Historic sculpture of cattleman,meatpacking magnate beheaded last December

By Lance Armstrong vcneditor@gmail.com

Editor’s note: This is the first article in a series related to William Land Park’s Charles Swanston Memorial Fountain, which was vandalized in December 2022.

Although it is in its preliminary stages, a plan to restore a recently vandalized, nearly century-old statue in William Land Park is being formalized.

The statue, which is located on a knoll just north of the Sacramento Zoo, pays tribute to an early area resident: the rancher and meat packing magnate Charles Swanston (1833-1911).

Known as the Charles Swanston Memorial Fountain, it was designed and sculpted by the famous sculptor, painter, muralist, etcher and art educator Ralph Stackpole (1885-1973). The fountain was officially accepted by the city on June 18, 1926.

The statue bears the inscriptions: “To the pioneers” and “Erected by George Swanston in memory of his father Charles Swanston.” George Swanston donated $10,000 for the creation of the statue.

During the early morning of Dec. 27, 2022, the Land Park News was informed by one of its readers that the statue had become the victim of an act of vandalism.

“I wanted to let the Land Park News know that the Swanston fountain has been significantly damaged/beheaded,” she wrote in an email message.

The reader added that she had learned about the incident through a social media posting by a Land Park resident who discovered the damaged statue at about 10 a.m. the previous morning while she was jogging in the park.

In their response to receiving a report about this vandalism on

Dec. 26, the Sacramento Police Department announced that the incident was being investigated

See SCULPTURE on page 5