Vidalia Onions statue

Officials in Toombs County, Georgia, originally planned a flagpole for the dome of the county's new courthouse and government center in Lyons. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, someone suggested something more ornamental, a finial: an onion, not unlike the one on the amphitheater in neighboring Vidalia. The paper dates the search for a design to 2022, and a photo caption says workers installed the stainless steel onion on the courthouse roof in 2023. The sculpture is "9-foot-wide, 10-foot-tall" and was built by Ruth English, a Vidalia artist who is the daughter of a metal fabrication shop owner in town. English chose stainless steel, which she called "the prettiest and most pristine metal" and one that would hold up to the weather. County Manager John Jones calls the onion "our Golden Arches", and the paper says passersby can't resist snapping photos. English told the paper she was worried the night Hurricane Helene sliced through in September 2024; the next day she saw it up there on top. The onion nods to the region's Vidalia sweet onions, a local crop and brand.