BARRE, Vt. — The Vermont city defined by the stone pulled from within its surrounding hills is hoping to use that granite to commission a piece of art conceived more than seven decades ago honoring one of the nation’s first Boy Scout troops.
A local Boy Scout historian is leading the effort in Barre, a city known as “the granite center of the world,” to complete the project — a granite statue of a scout carrying a person on his shoulders. The original project ceased following the 1941 death of Italian-born artist Carlo Abate, who helped train generations of Barre artists.
The Boy Scout sculpture would join three existing works of art that commemorate the city’s heritage as a granite center made famous by its immigrants.
“We’ve erected monuments throughout America and even the world and we only have three within the city,” said Steve Restelli, a Barre native and former Boy Scout.