Fountain of Time

Taft took the idea from Henry Austin Dobson's poem The Paradox of Time, which includes the couplet ending 'Time stays, we go!' A plaque in front of the monument quotes Taft describing the mighty crag-like figure of time leaning on his staff and watching the endless march of humanity, according to the Chicago Maroon.

Taft had planned stone, but judged it too difficult and costly, so he worked with engineer and sculptor John J. Earley, who had invented a type of concrete construction allowing more colour and texture. The park district says Taft's assistants, students and his three daughters served as models, and that he included a self-portrait at the rear. The B.F. Ferguson Fund of the Art Institute of Chicago commissioned it to mark the hundredth anniversary of an 1814 peace treaty between America and Canada, and it was dedicated on 15 November 1922.

Chicago's freeze-thaw cycle, pollution and improper repairs later did serious damage. The park district says a fifteen-year conservation effort, costing $2 million and completed in 2007, followed. The Chicago Maroon reported in 2002 on an earlier restoration phase, in which restorers rebuilt missing details, including the eagles on top of the Roman standards, from old photographs.

It is an outdoor monument in a public park, at the end of the Midway Plaisance.