Noah Webster

Noah Webster is a West Hartford native who devoted decades to writing the first American dictionary.  Those of us old enough to remember books (those things with sheets of printed paper encased in hard covers) all learned how to look up the spelling and meaning of words in a Webster dictionary.

Today Noah stands in front of West Hartford's main library, oddly enough called the Noah Webster Library (in brick to his rear), and Blue Back Square, a new development that will get some ink (er, some pixels) in the coming days . . .

This 13 1/2 foot statue was a gift from a West Harford-based sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski.  Mr. Z later helped Gutzon Borglum with the large-scale carving at Mount Rushmore, before going on to carve the Crazy Horse Memorial into another South Dakota mountain.