An Eagle Statue for Jacobus Park

Eagle Statue donated to Jacobus Park. Photo courtesy Milwaukee County Parks.

Jacobus Park in Wauwatosa could soon become home to a statue of an eagle.

The statue, titled “Soaring to New Heights,” was dedicated to the late Charles D. Jacobus, founder of the Charles D. Jacobus Family Foundation and grandson of Charles C. Jacobus, the park’s namesake. The eagle currently sits in perpetual flight at the office of Jacobus Energy, an energy transportation company, at 11815 W. Bradley Rd. in Milwaukee.

It would be moved to Jacobus Park, a 30-acre county park on the eastern edge of Wauwatosa. It sits south of the Menomonee River Parkway roughly between N. 60th and N. 60th streets. Its official address is 6501 W. Hillside Ln.

The children of Charles D. Jacobus wish to donate the statue to Milwaukee County Parks for placement in the park named for their great-grandfather. The donors — Charles D. Jacobus, Jr., Eugene Jacobus and Missy Jacobus MacLeod — would pay the moving and installation costs.

“Charles D. Jacobus, Sr., for whom the statue was dedicated, cared deeply for his community and with his family created the Charles D. Jacobus Family Foundation in 1986,” Parks staff said in a report. “The Foundation continues to exist today and provides grants for the benefit of Milwaukee’s children.”

Jacobus Park was named for a former Milwaukee County Supervisor from the early 20th century. Charles C. Jacobus was, according to his 1936 obituary in the Milwaukee Sentinel, “an important figure in the road building industry” and “closely identified with the building, banking and political life of Milwaukee and Wisconsin for many years.”

The park was originally called Sholes Park and named for Christopher Latham Sholes, a Wisconsin State Senator and an inventor of the typewriter, according to the Wisconsin Historical Society. It was renamed for Jacobus in 1932.

“Jacobus Park is a fitting resting place for this statute as a testament to the Jacobus’s long history of commitment to the community and in recognition of the park’s namesake,” according to the parks department.