Northern California statue of meat-packing magnate beheaded

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The statue of a Nineteenth-century Northern California rancher and meat-packing magnate was decapitated earlier this week, leaving investigators within the state’s capital metropolis scratching their heads to discover a motive behind the vandalism.

Tipsters may obtain a $1,000 reward for details about what befell the practically century-old granite statue of Charles Swanston in Sacramento’s William Land Park on Monday. The severed head was discovered on the bottom close by.

Swanston traveled west from Ohio as a part of the California Gold Rush and rapidly realized he’d earn more money as a butcher, based on Sacramento Metropolis Historian Marcia Eymann.

Police are investigating whether or not the vandal — or vandals — had a beef with the Swanstons or if it was a random act.

“I do not know why anybody, until they’re vegetarians and didn’t like meat-packers” would do that to the statue, Eymann stated Wednesday. “I discover this very weird.”

The statue is the work of the late sculptor Ralph Stackpole, a well-known San Francisco artist through the Nice Despair period.

An early Sacramento pioneer and settler, Swanston then grew to become a rancher and began a meat-packing enterprise that made him wealthy. His son within the Nineteen Twenties commissioned the statue, which is a part of a fountain, and donated it to the town after Swanston’s loss of life in 1911 at 101 years outdated, The Sacramento Bee reported.

The household’s ranch was situated on what’s now William Land Park. Eymann stated if not for his son’s donation, the town would possible have by no means put up a chunk for Swanston.

“Not that anyone is aware of who he’s, however that’s one thing very particular that Sacramento had and now it’s destroyed,” she stated.