Lady Liberty looms over this Georgia town

McRae — Lady Liberty has stood guard over this town for more than a generation, her pale green complexion rising above the low-slung skyline.

She will turn 40 next year, so McRae has been “going green” for decades.

Folks here carry a measure of pride that she’s still standing on a patch of grass near the corner of where four major highways come together. 

Telfair County’s very own Statue of Liberty is a roadside curiosity. She is a jolly, green giantess crafted by local woodworkers, cabinet makers, electricians, fiberglass boat builders and retired engineers.  

She has been a landmark for travelers and a conversation piece for townspeople. She has survived hurricanes and heat waves. She has breathed the exhaust fumes of 18-wheelers on the Golden Isles Highway and endured the rumble of box cars down by the railroad tracks and the piercing sound of train whistles in the night.

“You see people pulling over all the time and getting out of their cars to take pictures,’’ Brandi Ashley said.

Brandi’s father, the late Randy Yawn, carved Lady Liberty’s head from a 200-pound chunk of a black gum tree he found in a swamp in a neighboring county.

Downtown McRae has no harbor, as there is in New York, where her surrogate sister has been a symbol of liberty and freedom since 1886. The most renowned body of water in these parts is 17 miles down the road at the Ocmulgee River, where in the summer of 1932 a 19-year-old country boy named George Perry caught a world record (22-pound, 4-ounce) largemouth bass.

While the national Statue of Liberty was a gift to the
United States from France, the only thing remotely French about McRae’s “mini-me” is the smell of fries from McDonald’s a block away.

She was made in America, a big, beautiful “build” by blue-collared laymen, and constructed in back yards, workshops and carports. The statue of her famous namesake has been called “Colossal Neoclassical.’’ Her architectural style might best be described as “Bubba Expressionism.’’

“I am gratified it has been a source of pride in the community,’’ said Eddie Selph, a retired bank president who served as chairman of the “Salute to Liberty” project as a member of the McRae Lions Club in the mid-1980s.

That same kind of local pride was on display when McRae joined other cities and towns across the nation to celebrate the bicentennial, America’s 200th birthday, on July 4, 1976.

Selph said the community was just as eager 10 years later when the decision was made to mark the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Statue of Liberty by launching an ambitious project to replicate Lady Liberty.

With Selph as president, the Lions Club took the lead. The project was the brainchild of the late Ray Bowers, a retired military officer with a background in engineering.

  “It was his original idea to do the statue,’’ Selph said. “He did the early footwork, figured out how tall it was going to be and basically designed everything.’’

No, this wasn’t a giant Erector Set or an Amazon woman made out of Legos. There was nothing temporary or inflatable in her assembly. She was built for the long haul.

The blueprints called for the statue to be 1/12 the scale of the original. She stands about 30 feet tall, with three feet of the base underground. By comparison, her New York counterpart is 151 feet, 1 inch tall (305 feet, 1 inch from the base to the tip of the torch), touting a 42-foot right arm and an index finger (8 feet) taller than any pro basketball player to ever put on a uniform.

Bowers began recruiting his construction team. Since they were working with a limited budget, they had to be creative. They  repurposed materials to breathe life into the lady. (One group put a crack in the town’s fire bell for a replica of the Liberty Bell, so there’s a slice of New York and Philadelphia on the same stretch of block known as “Liberty Square.’’)

Yawn was asked to put the face on the project. He took a chainsaw to the black gum and fetched his hand tools to carve beauty in the details. He was a woodworker, just like his dad. His hands were always whittling
something. 

“He was an artist,’’ said his widow, Betty.

His daughter, Wendy Lee, was convinced her daddy could build anything. And he did … from rocking chairs to children’s toys to bedroom lofts. He did carvings for local businesses. He once had several of his woodworkings displayed at the Little Ocmulgee State Park on the outskirts of town.

“He was always building and making things for people,’’ she said. “It was his joy. He loved it.’’

He sported a handlebar mustache to cover his baby face and make him look older, and that became his trademark. He put his signature mustache emblem on just about any piece of wood he left his fingerprints on, even across the top of the front porch.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a mustache somewhere under that Statue of Liberty,’’ Wendy said, laughing.

Betty recalled her husband taking an extra measure of pride in Lady Liberty.   

“He usually made something and, if you liked it, you liked it,’’ she said. “But this was a difficult project because he was commissioned to do it. It was so iconic. It had to be so exact and precise.’’

Yawn also did the upraised arm. It was determined it needed to be made of a lighter material than wood, so it was constructed of plastic foam with a steel pipe for bone support.  

The torch was made from a cypress tree in Arkansas and turned on a lathe in a local cabinet shop owned by Saxton Sheppard, who also built the pedestal. The hand that holds it is a large insulated electrician lineman’s glove filled with plaster of Paris. 

Miss Liberty has always been a single woman. But after one of her fingers broke, it was reattached with a piece of heavy tape that made it look like she was wearing a wedding ring.

Five layers of heavy cloth were fashioned with wire and plywood to add body and shape to her toga. It took four days to coat her with fiberglass at Luther Gatlin’s boat manufacturing business.

Wendy said her father was also asked to create a couple of other body parts.

He molded the breasts.

She still has a photograph of Yawn with his … er, handiwork. Yes, he is grinning in the picture.

His family said that even though Yawn was in the center of all the efforts, he had no idea about the scope of it until he saw how it changed the landscape and became the heartbeat of the town.    

“It just sort of all came together,’’ Selph said. “We had our own Statute of Liberty, and people were excited.’’

A community-wide dedication was held in the days leading up to the Fourth of July in 1986. The statue found its permanent home on a high-profile piece of real estate at the junction of Highways 441, 341, 280 and 319. The empty lot, now known as Liberty Square, was once owned by a local bank and deeded to the city. 

McRae’s Statue of Liberty has naturally shown some signs of aging. It has been refurbished, repaired and touched up. Last fall, when Hurricane Helene pushed through Telfair County, the storm wreaked havoc on the top of her head.

The city summoned cherry picker equipment to straighten her crown.

Next year, of course, America will celebrate and commemorate its Semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

And the enduring symbol of freedom in a small town in Georgia will have 40 candles of her own on her birthday cake. Or, as they say, 39 and holding.

She’s far from being over the hill.