12/10/2006:
Plans were in the making to create a gift from North Dakota to Norway on this day in 1913. An pronouncement was placed in the Fargo Forum announcing the formation of a committee to present a statue of President Abraham Lincoln to the Norwegian government on behalf of North Dakota. The statue was meant to celebrate North Dakota’s Norwegian roots and Norway’s 1914 centennial. Each county in the state was asked to donate $100 toward the creation of the statue, and North Dakota artist Paul Fjelde was selected to sculpt the piece. Fjelde, a student of Chicago sculptor Lorado Taft, spent five years working on the bust. Governor Hanna’s daughter presented the piece to a Norwegian delegation in Oslo upon its completion. A replica of the sculpture still sits in Hillsboro, North Dakota, on the lawn of the courthouse.
Sources:
Fargo Forum and Daily Republican (Evening ed.). December 10, 1913: p. 8.
Fargo Forum and Daily Republican (Evening ed.). December 11, 1913: p. 1.
http://www.state.nd.us/arts/artist_archive/F/Fjelde_Paul
-Jayme L. Job