The Boy with the Leaking Boot is a statue showing a young boy, with a bare right foot, holding up his right boot and looking at it. The statue is about tall, and in many cases forms a fountain, with water emerging from the toe of the boot. There are at least 24, and reportedly "hundreds" of examples. The origins of the statue are obscure. The boy is reported to be a young Italian newspaper seller who drowned, or an American army drummer-boy who carried water in his leaking boot to help fallen comrades, or a young fire-fighter either using his boot in a bucket chain or emptying his boot after an incident, or possibly none of these. The statue has also been called The Boy with the Leaky Boot, Boy Immigrant and Unfortunate Boot.
Origins
The exact origin of the "Boy with the Boot" statue/fountains has been uncertain. It appears the first statues appeared in the U.S. c.1895 and were thought to have been purchased in Europe by wealthy travelers on the "Grand European Tour". Many stories relate the statues came from Germany, but that has not been confirmed.
However, a connection between the statue and Germany may have more validity. Patrick Patterson of Clovis, California purchased what was purported to be the "original" bronze molds for the Boy with the Boot statue in 1998 from an antique dealer (Lamoine Abbott) of San Angelo, Texas. These molds of the Boy with the Boot statue were sold to the Texas dealer by "Midwest Exchange, Inc." of Shawnee, Wisconsin in 1981. Midwest Exchange Inc. related the molds came from a Mr. Henry Braun, of Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Braun was believed to have emigrated from Germany in the 1920s and may have brought these molds with him. It was stated Henry Braun was an "uncle" of Eva Braun.
The bronze molds are probably the "original" molds because the "original" statues were cast in "white metal" (zinc) by a process of "slurry casting"...a process quite different from lost wax casting methods.
Statues in the United States
Among the earliest statues is that in Sandusky, Ohio, where it stood in front of the Porter House hotel on the shore of Lake Erie. The original zinc statue was brought from Germany in 1876 by a prominent local couple, Mr and Mrs Voltaire Scott. After cyclone damage and several incidents of vandalism, the statue was moved to the lobby of the local City Hall, and a replacement bronze was installed in a fountain in Washington Park.
In Helena, Montana, a statue stood in front of the "Natatorium", built in 1889 and housing the then-largest indoor plunge pool in the world, as part of the Broadwater Hotel complex. The statue is now in the former First National Bank Building on Last Chance Gulch in the town.
One of the statues was erected in Courthouse Park in Fresno, California in 1895. It was a drinking fountain, funded by public subscription organised by Sergeant Nichols of the Salvation Army. Tin cups hung from the statue, and the pipes were cooled by blocks of ice. The statue was purchased from the J. L. Mott Iron Works of New York. The statue was moved, vandalised and repaired on various occasions, recast in bronze in 1947, and again recast in 1995. It is currently in the Fresno County Plaza on Tulare Street.
The statue erected in 1895 in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, had a similarly chequered existence, being damaged by a horse-drawn vehicle in 1910 and thereafter cared for by the local fire department, outside whose station he stood with various incidents of damage and restoration including being decapitated in 1998 (the head was handed in to the police three days later). A concrete casting of the statue was made and erected in 2009. The original statue, restored, was in 2010 still in the possession of the fire department and it was reported that "An idea which seems to be gathering support is to install him in a glass case inside Fire Station #1." A statue of the boy highlights a fountain on Main Street and School Street in Wallingford, Vermont, United States, and has been a centerpiece in the town since 1898.
There have been five statues in five different locations in New Orleans since 1898 when the first was erected at the Milliken Children's Hospital of Charity. The boot, all that remained after this statue was vandalised in 1961, is reported to grace the present day hospital administrator's desk. The latest statue stands in a pool at the Children's Hospital.