Beloved Mascots

Sometimes links in history are like seeing your reflection in a rippling pond. The image isn't exact but the similarities are amazing. I had a historical reflections moment this past weekend watching 10 Things You Don't Know About: The Hoover Dam on the H2 Channel. The host, Henry Rollins, pointed out that a beloved black labrador-mix mascot was buried at the Hoover Dam site. The dog had been born under one of the men's barracks and was quickly adopted and cared for by the workers who gave their spare change during the Great Depression for his care. Their mascot even made jaunts into Boulder City with the crews in the evening where townspeople gladly gave up bits of ice cream and candy for him. The diet proved a little unhealthy for the lab mix and so this ad ran in the local paper:

I Love Candy but it makes me sick

It is bad for my coat

Please don't feed me any more.

One hot day the dog was resting in the shade behind a vehicle and was accidentally run over. Burly and gruff men, with tears in their eyes, cried as they jackhammered a grave on site for their beloved black lab-mix mascot. 

So too here at the IAA Building we have a grave for our beloved mix-breed mascot Lady. Lady too found the allure of a construction site and kept wondering off from her home on Sunset Road. Lady had chosen new owner, Chuck Russell from the IAA Building Department, and her original owners Dr. & Mrs. Irwin eventually agreed to let Chuck take care of her. In the middle of 1961 Lady was known by high-heeled secretaries and suit and tie attorneys alike who were now working in the completed building. Like the Hoover Dam Dog, Lady also met an untimely end due to a vehicle when she wandered onto Towanda Avenue in December 1961. IAA Attorney George Merker, Jr., who was in charge of the entire move from Chicago to Bloomington, was especially attached to Lady and he purchased a small casket for her and also the grave marker found today on the southeast corner of GROWMARK's parking lot. 

Two stories in history linked by construction and canine companionship.

Special thanks to Kate Kelly at AmericaComesAlive.com for her additional info about the dog at Hoover Dam. 
http://americacomesalive.com/2012/08/19/the-dog-on-the-hoover-dam/#.VCGsKNzse2Q