Dear Editor,
The efforts to repair Blackhawk Statue took a giant leap forward with a $100,000 donation by Oregon’s E.D. Etnyre Company. Thank you E. D. Etnyre Company.
This is just the latest step in support for the iconic statue by that historic Ogle County manufacturing firm. In 1910, company founder Edward Daniel Etnyre played a key role in the creation of the statue.  
John Prasuhn, an Art Institute of Chicago compatriot of Lorado Taft (with knowledge of working with concrete) took on the task of executing Taft’s design for The Eternal Indian (the statue’s original name) in its full size on the Rock River Bluff at the Eagle’s Nest Art Colony.  Prasuhn looked to Etnyre’s metal working abilities to custom form the 24 steel rods that internally supported that casting that was the head of the statue.

Etnyre also played a role in the pumping and piping system that brought Rock River water to the top of the bluff to use in making concrete for the final casting process.
When construction delays took the project into winter weather, eventually facing temperatures as cold as -2 degrees, Etnyre played a role in the heating system that made it possible for as many as 28 men to continue the continuous-pour concrete casting work.
Interestingly, Prasuhn’s personal transportation during that project was an Etnyre automobile.  That vehicle resides today in the lobby of the E.D. Etnyre Company.
Edward Daniel Etnyre was certainly one of the unsung heroes of what has become the hallmark of the Rock River Valley.
Ron Colson
Mount Morris