Almost 150 years after its construction, an iconic Hanoverian statue is being renovated as it returns home, thanks to the passion of a Hanoverian man.

Iron Mike, a one-of-a-kind cast-iron dog statue commissioned by Hanover resident George Washington Welsh in the 1800s, is currently being restored by Roland Bohrer, co-owner of Metalgod Casting & Fabrication, a small Hanover-based company. He went to the foundry with his son Luke Bohrer.

Iron Mike’s restoration began at Mt. It happened as he was heading to Olivet Cemetery.

It was previously reported: Iron Mike goes home: Hanover municipality approves moving the statue to the cemetery from which it came

Bohrer, who undertook the project at no cost to the cemetery, admired the Iron Mike statue for a long time while wandering around Hanover’s square and called it one of his favorite pieces.

“Bringing back and restoring old things is a passion of mine,” said Bohrer, who has been dealing with metalworking and metal casting for 45 years.

“I will be 63 in December and I still have the passion to come to work every day,” Bohrer said.

According to Bohrer, the project is not about money, but about giving back to the Hanoverian community.

“I’m investing my own money to do this, because I think you have to give back to your community,” Bohrer said. “This was just my way of doing it.”

The statue was in rough shape when it first arrived at Bohrer, he said. More than 100 years of wear and tear had left the cast-iron statue with numerous holes, as well as cracks and other damage.

The damage, Bohrer had heard, occurred when the statue was at a traffic intersection that once stood in downtown Hanover.

According to the story Bohrer heard, a man was driving cattle through a traffic circle when one of the cows hit the statue and broke its tail. The damage was repaired and the tail re-welded, but signs of the damage remained visible years later.

Along with the repairs to the tail, other repairs occurred throughout the statue’s life, including multiple coats of paint. Rust also appears in many places, Bohrer said.

Now Bohrer will repair these holes and other damage and blend the repairs with the dog’s distinctive coat pattern.

Once the repairs are complete, the statue will be coated in black paint, followed by bronze highlights to help the statue look new again.

Bohrer’s goal is to ensure the repairs last another 100 years; This includes finishing it with several coats of protective wax to protect it from the weather.

Although the statue is small compared to larger statues like Pickett, which he once sat next to, Bohrer estimates that the statue weighed around 200 to 250 pounds.

“It took three of us to get it here,” Bohrer said, standing in his foundry.

Bohrer expects the work to be done in spring 2025, but the passion project is being done in Bohrer’s spare time when he is not busy with work and clients.

While restoring the statue requires time and resources, Bohrer states that it would cost between $75,000 and $80,000 to recreate the one-of-a-kind statue.

“It takes a lot of detail and a lot of work to recreate a model of this,” Bohrer said, noting that the statue’s original creator probably took about a year to create the complex model of Iron Mike in the 1800s. .

Bohrer is no stranger to unique challenges, as his small custom foundry focuses on handmade, low-volume casting with a process that remains true to art history.

Bohrer’s foundry features few of the automated or computer-operated processes you’d find in a larger foundry, and many of the facility’s castings use hand-carved wood patterns.

In fact, the foundry relies entirely on very little electricity, beyond a sieving machine to keep the foundry sand consistent, ventilation fans, and a homemade overhead conveyor belt for the foundry sand that Bohrer’s son Luke built himself.

Dog-gone history

Although the exact date Iron Mike was cast is lost to history, many sources date Iron Mike to the mid-1800s.

Welsh moved Iron Mike to Mt. Baltimore Street to protect the statue’s tomb. He kept it in his front yard at 19 Baltimore Street in Hanover until his death on December 22, 1879, when it was moved to Olivet Cemetery.

Welsh’s grave was near a crossroads in the cemetery, which caused many horses and Iron Mike to pass through the grave while pulling hearses.

The statue was donated to Hanover County in the 1880s after the dog statue frightened countless horses passing through the cemetery.

In 1905, Iron Mike would move next door to The Pickett, one of downtown Hanover’s most well-known landmarks.

Built to commemorate the Battle of Hanover, Pickett was placed downtown in 1904, just one year before the dog statue was added.

At that time, Pickett and Iron Mike were in the middle of the traffic circle in Central Square. In 1967, the circle was demolished and the pair of statues were moved to the northeast quadrant of the square adjacent to the Clark Shoes exit.

Mt. According to Olivet Cemetery, since scaring horses was no longer a concern, the cemetery reached out to Hanover County in May of 2024 for information on returning Iron Mike to his original owner’s resting place.

County officials agreed to the move, and the move was approved at a June meeting of the Hanover County Council, with the stipulation that all expenses associated with the move would be covered by the cemetery.

Now, as Bohrer works to restore the statue, he looks forward to its return to the community.

“I’m excited to get this done,” Bohrer said. “I hope the people of Hanover appreciate and appreciate the work we put into this.”

Harrison Jones is the Hanover correspondent for the Evening Sun newspaper. Reach him at [email protected].

This article was first published in the Hanover Evening Sun: Historic ‘Iron Mike’ gets a facelift as statue heads home