Valley Girl Views: The Dauphin Narrows Statue Of Liberty

One morning in July 2nd of 1986, traffic along 322 came to a standstill, as onlookers noticed a white statue of liberty had appeared in the middle of the Susquehanna River. The statue stands on a pier of the old Marysville Railroad bridge, last used in 1882.

It was a few weeks before locals figured out the identity of the creator. Gene Stilp, a local engineering hobbyist, had constructed the statue from plywood and Venetian blinds, and then gathered a few of his friends to take the statue out by boat and place it in the river. It wasn't until 2011 that the men gave interviews and made their involvement fully public.

One of the friends he enlisted to help was safety coordinator Steve Oliphant. As Steve recalls, “I was concerned about taking a bunch of knuckleheads with a 450-pound statue out into the Dauphin Narrows. It can get dangerous out there.” “We were 32 feet in the air, and it was pitch black, and we had to be very careful,” said Stilp. This section of the river, known as the Dauphin Narrows, can be quite treacherous, with many rocks and a good bit of whitewater, depending on the season.

The men, in several small boats, used only roped to hoist the 450 pound statue to the top of the pylon, 30 feet in the air.

The original replica lasted nearly six years, before being severely damaged in storms. Locals missed it so much that they raised $25,000 to have Stilp build a new replica, of the replica. Stilp ran into a series of complications and delays, and the Dauphin Borough Council took over the project in January of 1997. In July of that year, eleven years after the first replica was placed, the new replica was hoisted by helicopter from Fort Hunter to the pylon, where it was lashed securely fast with cables. This four ton, twenty five foot tall version took two years to complete, at a cost of over $33,000, and is made of metal and fiberglass, instead of Venetian blinds. It is finished with a polyester coating.

Kayaking To The Dauphins Narrows Liberty

I've been taking photos of this statue for what feels like my entire life - starting way back in high school, trying to catch a glimpse of it from school bus windows as we traveled to Harrisburg for a school trip. This year, 2019, we finally saw it up close, by kayaking to it. The water right around the statue can be a bit treacherous - two from our party did flip their kayaks. There are a lot of big rocks just under the water, and there is a very swift current here. Conditions vary greatly by water levels, and we had pretty idea water levels for our trip, yet it was still a bit tricky in spots.

We put in at the Ann Street Boat Launch Area in Duncannon Pa.

N 40° 23.457 W 077° 01.761

The RIver Levels can be checked here:

https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=ctp&gage=harp1

It was around 5 feet when we made our trip.

We got out at Fort Hunter, making this roughly an 8 mile trip. We stopped for a bit at the rope swing along the way, and stopped again for a good bit near the statue, and still the trip only took us right around 3 hours in total. The water is VERY swift right around the statue, but as soon as you get past, where you see my kayak in the photo above, the river is almost still, and you can stop here to take photos without too much trouble.

See all the photos from our trip here:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/FieldsOfHeatherPhotos/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1065732416962505

The Statue as seen from The Fort Hunter Boat Launch Area

The water is somewhat flat below the statue - it would be possible, at times when the water is slow, to put in at Fort Hunter and paddle upriver to see the statue

There is a way to see the statue from the Marysville side of the river. Uncovering Pa has made this trek (you have to cross multiple railroad tracks, and it's not simple to do) and has instructions here - https://uncoveringpa.com/statue-of-liberty-harrisburg