World's Largest Praying Hands

Webb City, Missouri, United States

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Praying Hands is a sculpture in King Jack Park, Webb City, Missouri, created by artist Jack Dawson. A 2024 Show Me the Ozarks article says it was dedicated on April 28, 1974, and describes Dawson as starting his teaching career in Webb City during the increasing protests over the Vietnam War. The article estimated it at 32 feet high and 100 tons.

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World's Largest Praying Hands

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Site-level location · 37.1467° N, 94.4630° W

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The story

A pair of praying hands, estimated at 32 feet high, was dedicated in a Webb City, Missouri, park in 1974, after a local young artist's idea in the Vietnam War era.

A 2024 Show Me the Ozarks article placed the sculpture in King Jack Park and estimated it at 32 feet high and 100 tons, of steel and concrete. Its creator, Jack Dawson, is described as a young artist native to Webb City; his daughter, quoted in the article, says he was finishing his art studies and beginning an art-teaching career at Webb City High School "during the increasing protests over the Vietnam War." The article quotes the town's mayor giving the monument's message as "Hands in Prayer. World in Peace." It gives the dedication date as April 28, 1974.

According to the article, Dawson and his uncle, an industrial welder, built a steel base in the first year, then added a superstructure of 10-inch beams and metal lathe with steel supports set deep in the ground. Plaster concrete was layered over it, and Dawson molded the veins, knuckles and nails to depict the hands of an everyday, hardworking laborer. The work took about two years. The park board approved an agreement for the installation on August 3, 1971, and about $3,000 was raised for materials, lighting and landscaping.

The article gave the location as alongside Highway 71, not far from Main Street, and says a ceramic tile mural was added to the back in November 2020. Roadside America says Dawson built the hands in his back yard and moved them to the site, where they sit on a 40-foot man-made hill.

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