The nearly 50-year-old Praying Hands Monument in King Jack Park in Webb City, Missouri, will undergo extensive stabilization work later this month.
According to the Joplin Globe, the Dawson Heritage Foundation has hired Midland Enterprises to work on the substructure of the sculpture, which was built in 1973:
The contractor will place a new reinforced concrete base inside the substructure to serve as a foundation for the new structural retrofits. Existing horizontal bracing beams will get new steel supports that will rest on top of the new concrete base. New steel members will be designed and added as required.
Following internal stabilization work, tuck-pointing will be completed and a new moisture barrier will be created. North Fork Structural Engineering will be onsite during the renovation work to ensure structural requirements are met and to document the renovation work for future monument care.
Construction is expected to last about a month.
A new memorial wall erected in November explains the origins of the monument:
At the time, Jack Dawson was a 21-year-old artist finishing up his degree at Missouri Southern State College and embarking on his art teacher career at Webb City High School when he got the idea for the Praying Hands statue in the early 1970s.
“The ’60s were a bad time for our country,” Jack Dawson said. “The Praying Hands were to be an encouragement for all to seek the One who can bring peace. The Hands still speak to various issues going on today. I think they can never be replaced, as far as the message that they bring because it doesn’t change, even though world situations and conflicts do.” […}
Jim Dawson said their uncle, Loren Lynn, who was an industrial welder, helped put together the steel and metal base that formed the hands. The statue’s understructure was built in Jack Dawson’s backyard on Third Street and had to be moved by a crane and a large flatbed truck. Its weight is estimated to be 220,000 pounds.
The praying hands are 32 feet tall on top of a 40-foot-tall hill.
Another set of large praying hands stands not far from Route 66. The sculpture at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa stands 60 feet tall and weighs 30 tons.
(Image of the Praying Hands Monument in Webb City, Missouri, by Batotman via Wikimedia Commons)
