Familiar Pioneer Bank Statue Now In New Location

More than 50 years ago, officials of the former Pioneer Bank placed a nine-foot statue of a pioneer man atop a large pedestal in the lobby of its new mid-century modern building in downtown Chattanooga.
 
These days the statue itself has become sort of a wandering pioneer, as it is in a new location while a permanent home is sought for it. But in contrast to the real American pioneers of old, this fellow did not go too far.
 
Since mid-September, it has been housed just across the 800 block of Chestnut Street at the nearby Figgy’s Sandwich Shop, which the late longtime Pioneer Bank chairman George Clark Jr. frequented.
 
As a result, it has become a regular lunch companion to the current diners and now keeps an eye on a different kind of dough or bread.
 
“It’s been fun having him in here,” said longtime Figgy’s proprietor Larry Jackson, as he looked at the statue standing in a front corner. “It’s a big conversation piece. The kids come in and look at it, and the parents take pictures of it.”
 
George Clark III, the son of Mr. Clark Jr., thinks his father would be fine with the statue’s new location, even if it is only temporary.
 
“I think he would have loved it because he enjoyed coming in here,” said Mr. Clark III, who has followed in his family’s line of work as the manager of Regions Bank’s South Broad branch.
 
The Pioneer man’s new digs came about after the building that now houses Pinnacle Bank was sold in 2015 to developers Ken and Byron DeFoor, and the statue had to be removed.
 
The statue is still owned by the family of the late Mr. Clark Jr., and they had been trying to find a permanent home for it even before its move to Figgy’s. Mr. Clark III thought the planned Chattanooga Regional History Museum facility might have been ideal before those ambitious plans were scrapped.
 
The statue was in a nearby vacant unit before Steve Hunt of the Berry & Hunt realty asset company, which has handled leases in both the Pioneer Building and the CitiPark structure where Figgy’s is located, asked Mr. Jackson if he would not mind it being in the sandwich shop.
 
Mr. Jackson was not sure if it could be brought into the restaurant, until one day when he saw three men carrying the statue head first into the restaurant. “I said, ‘No way that this could fit,’ ” he recalled with a laugh.
 
The pedestal the statue formerly sat on at some point several years ago became separated from the artwork.
 
The statue – which resembles a handsome pioneer as Hollywood might have depicted him - originally sat first in the lobby of Pioneer Bank after the Bianculli and Palm-designed building was officially opened in November 1962. The Pioneer man’s vintage look likely created quite a contrast to the then-modern early 1960s design the bank’s teller windows and lobby had before a later remodeling.
 
After First American merged with Pioneer in 1999 and the Pioneer name soon disappeared, the statue was moved to an outer lobby on the Chestnut Street side.
 
But the statue has not been ignored, as some bank employees of Pinnacle Bank (which was formerly CapitalMark at that location) have decorated him for Christmas every year – including this year -- with a plus-sized red cap and holiday shoes.
 
The statue, of course, was a symbol of the old Pioneer Bank and its respect for the rugged individualism and determination of early Americans.
 
Mr. Clark III said his grandfather, George Clark Sr., had come up with the Pioneer Bank name in 1938 for the former Morris Plan bank with which he was affiliated.
 
“He was an amateur historian who was very interested in the life of Davy Crockett in particular,” Mr. Clark said of his grandfather, who died in 1979. “He traveled to sites where Davy Crockett was.”
 
The name was also reportedly chosen for marketing reasons because of the fact that the financial institution had pioneered several aspects of banking services locally.
 
The statue was dedicated on Sunday, Nov. 4, 1962, eight days before the official opening of the bank at its new site after the move from the Maclellan Building. The ceremony was attended by all three George Clarks, with a very young George Clark III pulling a thick white cord to unveil the statue.
 
Mr. Clark said this week that he unfortunately does not remember that event, even though a picture of him and his father and grandfather ran on the front of the next day’s Chattanooga Times.
 
Also on hand for the statue dedication were representatives of local historical organizations and city chaplain Dr. James L. Fowle of First Presbyterian Church, who delivered the invocation.
 
While the bank’s mission was shaped by the elder Mr. Clark’s admiration for the early American pioneers and their spirit, the statue was molded simply by accomplished sculptor George Kratina of New York.
 
Mr. Kratina was 52 years old when the Pioneer statue was dedicated, and it is not clear in one article whether he attended the dedication. But he was quoted in a multi-page Pioneer Bank section in the newspaper at the time as saying that the bank was looking for an expression of strength and fortitude in its main lobby when it commissioned the work.
 
“Nothing suited this better than the bank’s symbol, the Pioneer who settled and built for the future, so a nine-foot figure of the pioneer was decided upon.”
 
He went on to say that the Pioneer man was designed to look rugged, strong and one who perseveres, while also looking to the future with confidence and expectation.
 
“The light and shade values modeled into the forms are strong and organized to give motion, even though the figure is still and intent,” the sculptor said.
 
Although newspaper articles at the time called the statue a work of bronze, which was a favorite medium of Mr. Kratina along with wood, Mr. Jackson believes it is made of chicken wire, plaster and perhaps some material like fiberglass.
 
It certainly does not appear to have a strong metallic texture like bronze when touched.
 
UT-Chattanooga art and architecture professor Dr. Gavin Townsend thinks it could possibly have been made with aluminum.
 
What is for sure is that the sculptor had a golden reputation. Born in the Czech Republic to an artisan father, Mr. Kratina showed promise early on as a sculptor, winning mention in the prestigious Prix de Roma competition at the age of only 14.
 
In the 1936 Olympics at Berlin at a time when various fine arts competitions were also part of the games, he competed in the mixed sculpturing, statues category judged at an exhibit hall on the Kaiserdamm boulevard in Berlin.
 
Out of the more than 100 entries, the former Yale rower’s sculpture of a crewman received praise, as it finished in a group of 18 garnering serious consideration. This group was just behind the three medal winners and the 14 artisans who received honorable mention.
 
He went on to teach at Cooper Union in New York City and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
 
In a heartfelt reminiscence posted online, a man named Phil Garrow wrote in recent years of helping Mr. Kratina with his sculpturing work as a teenager before Mr. Kratina died in 1980.
 
He said that Mr. Kratina and his wife, Anna, a nurse, had moved in the 1950s from their home in New York City to a more rural farmhouse in Old Chatham, N.Y., where his work studio was. That was evidently also when he became a professor at RPI.
 
Mr. Garrow recalled that Mr. Kratina had a strong work ethic but a positive and upbeat attitude and was encouraging to everyone with whom he came in contact.
 
He said that Mr. Kratina had his own way of producing his sculptures. He would first create a smaller sculpture out of plasticine clay, and then cover it in plaster before removing the latter in smaller segments.
 
At that point, the plasticine clay sculpture would be destroyed, and the broken outer pieces would be used to make the mold after Mr. Kratina rubbed a soapy substance on their insides.
 
After the new inner sculpture would harden, he would break away the outer mold, Mr. Garrow said. Then he would create the larger main sculpture using a three-dimensional pantograph copying machine and repeating the process again.
 
Mr. Kratina’s works include sculptures of the Troy, N.Y., meatpacker Sam Wilson, the man on whom the figure of Uncle Sam of patriotism fame was reportedly based; a wooden figure at the York, Pa., post office; the saints St. Joseph, St. Patrick and St. Francis at a church in San Francisco, and a statue of St. Leonard at the St. Leonard Franciscan living community in Centerville, Ohio.
 
And right now at Figgy’s in Chattanooga, Mr. Kratina’s locally familiar Pioneer statue has become St. Nick.
 
He might have originally been a symbol of the past, but now he might be one of the last tangible reminders of the old Pioneer Bank carried into the future.

To hear an interview with George Clark III about what his father might think about the Pioneer statue now being in Figgy’s, listen here.

To listen to Larry Jackson of Figgy’s talk about what it is like to have the statue in his restaurant, listen here.

Jcshearer2@comcast.net