Northern California statue of meat-packing magnate beheaded – WTOP News

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The statue of a Nineteenth-century Northern California rancher and meat-packing magnate was decapitated earlier this week, leaving investigators within the state’s capital metropolis scratching their heads to discover a motive behind the vandalism.

Tipsters may obtain a $1,000 reward for details about what befell the practically century-old granite statue of Charles Swanston in Sacramento’s William Land Park on Monday. The severed head was discovered on the bottom close by.

Swanston traveled west from Ohio as a part of the California Gold Rush and shortly realized he’d make more cash as a butcher, based on Sacramento Metropolis Historian Marcia Eymann.

Police are investigating whether or not the vandal — or vandals — had a beef with the Swanstons or if it was a random act.

“I don’t know why anybody, except they’re vegetarians and didn’t like meat-packers” would do that to the statue, Eymann mentioned Wednesday. “I discover this very weird.”

The statue is the work of the late sculptor Ralph Stackpole, a well-known San Francisco artist through the Nice Despair period.

An early Sacramento pioneer and settler, Swanston then turned a rancher and began a meat-packing enterprise that made him wealthy. His son within the Twenties commissioned the statue, which is a part of a fountain, and donated it to town after Swanston’s loss of life in 1911 at 101 years previous, The Sacramento Bee reported.

The household’s ranch was situated on what’s now William Land Park. Eymann mentioned if not for his son’s donation, town would doubtless have by no means put up a chunk for Swanston.

“Not that anyone is aware of who he’s, however that’s one thing very particular that Sacramento had and now it’s destroyed,” she mentioned.

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