“Ask Steve” is a State Journal-Register series where you can ask questions about Springfield’s personalities, history, buildings or tall tales and reporter Steven Spearie will do his best to answer them. What are you curious about? Send your questions to sspearie@sj-r.com.
Question:Â What is the story behind the Springfield Art Association’s metallic buffalo?
Answer: The Springfield Art Association’s metallic buffalo is one of the more identifiable public art pieces in the city.
“That is not (Abraham) Lincoln,” interjected SAA executive director Betsy Dollar. “I think we can easily clarify that because most of the public art in Springfield is actually related to Mr. Lincoln.”
Nearly seven feet in length and weighing 800 pounds, “Bicentennial Bison,” simply known as The Buffalo, has become a beloved icon of the SAA, a well-identified mascot on t-shirts and stationery. Top SAA donors are known as Golden Buffaloes and Silver Buffaloes and The Buffalo is often used as a backdrop for group photos.
How did the bison, or buffalo–the SAA uses the terms interchangeably although Dollar acknowledged there are distinctions between the two–stomp onto the grounds?
According to SAA research, William Bealmer, who was executive director in the 1970s, along with its board of directors commissioned the piece “with children in mind.” The buffalo was installed at the south end of the campus in 1975.
The artist? That was John “Jack” Kearney of Chicago, who by then was known for making sculptures out of chrome car bumpers, when bumpers were made out of such material.
The story is that Kearney unloaded a number of bumpers on the ground from junkyards and the assemblage conjured up a dancing woman.
“So I made one,” said Kearney, in a 2009 interview. “Everything is spontaneous to me.”
Kearney has sculptures in Oz Park in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, honoring author L. Frank Baum; at the Aon Building; in Lincoln Park Zoo and at the Museum of Science and Industry.
Kearney has another behemoth–“White-tailed Deer”–at the Illinois Capitol complex Visitors Center.
A Chicago Tribune obituary for Kearney in 2014 listed Johnny Carson, Norman Mailer, Brigitte Bardot and Kirk Douglas among his art collectors.
Age and weather have caught up with The Buffalo, so in January 2025, it went to Kearney’s former studio where his longtime assistant, John Keith, and Kearney’s son, Dan Kearney, still work.
They cleaned off the rust, re-secured a number of welds and added some new metal where it had rusted away or was breaking down.
Donors raised $15,000 for the repairs.
“They can’t re-chrome anything that big, so he still does have bare spots on him, but that’s just his age,” Dollar said. “We had the choice to either spray paint (the parts) silver, which I didn’t want to do, or let them show the erosion of the chrome and I figured that was more authentic.”
In May, the SAA had a birthday party for The Buffalo, with Chris Camp, the Whip Guy, birthday cake and buffalo-related games, like pin the tail on the buffalo.
Dollar sees The Buffalo as a symbol of independence and strength. Multiple generations of families at the SAA are getting to enjoy him and “it’s what they equate with the Art Association,” she said.
The Buffalo’s recent “spa treatment” should protect him for the next couple of decades, but Dollar said there is consideration for bringing him indoors permanently.
“The care and feeding of The Buffalo,” mused Dollar.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.Â
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Ask Steve: Digging into the story behind the ‘Bicentennial Bison’
Reporting by Steven Spearie, Springfield State Journal-Register / State Journal-Register
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By Steven Spearie, Springfield State Journal-Register | USA TODAY Network
