Faces & PlCES
Symbols of freedom stand near Arco
As a child, Stefansen remembers watching her uncle as he shaped wire screening into Lady Liberty, added cement and adhered stones. He created the seven-foot tall rock sculpture in an Arco gas station operated in the 1930s by his father, H. P. (Hans Peder) Pedersen. The project took 200 hours to complete. Once done, the statue’s torch was wired to light up. Today the statue and a Liberty Bell built by H. P. Pedersen grace the shore of Lake Stay in Anderson Park. The Arco Sportsman’s Club moved the pieces there. Hugo the Ram, created by Vernon Pedersen, also stands in the park.
While Vernon Pedersen constructed those two pieces, it was his American-born Danish father who embraced rock sculpting and became well-known for his artwork, according to Stefansen. H. P. Pedersen created a mini village behind his Arco gas station that attracted tourists by the busloads. He also covered the gas station façade with rock.
“Grandpa was so talented,” Stefansen said. “I expected him to do things like this. His hands were so magic. It (the sculpture) would grow until the image was there.”
For H. P. Pedersen, the process began with collecting rocks. He and his wife Reka hauled a two-wheel trailer on trips to the Black Hills or just around the country-side near their Lincoln County home, picking up interesting rocks from farm fields, from the side of the road, from rock piles. “He was so artistic, he absolutely couldn’t sit around,” his granddaughter said. “He had an eye for picking up rocks.” During the long winter months Pedersen sat in his kitchen cracking rocks open with a mallet or hammer.
While on his Arco farm, Pedersen built smaller rock sculptures like flower boxes and ash trays and sold them for extra income during the Depression.
But when he moved into Arco in 1936 and opened his gas station, Pedersen’s rock sculptures grew in size and complexity. He built the mini village, a Viking ship, the Liberty Bell and more. Today only the rock-covered former gas station remains onsite as part of a private residence. The other pieces were destroyed, moved or acquired by family members. Stefansen owns a picnic table, flower pots and a planter built by her grandfather.
Today she is preserving the Pedersen artistic legacy through scrap booking. While sorting through photos and news articles, Stefansen fondly recalls the time she spent with her grandparents after school. She watched her grandfather build rock sculptures in his gas station and listened to his stories. And she remembers too the breath-taking feeling she experienced walking through his yard, among the rock sculptures he created from 1936 until his death in 1940.
FYI: To view the Pedersen rock sculptures at Anderson Park on Lake Stay, take Lincoln County roads 7 and 15 half a mile east of Arco. This town of about 100 residents lies 23 miles southwest of Marshall near the Minnesota/South Dakota border.