Dedicated to all airmen who wore the uniform of the Armed Forces of the United States in time of conflict, the Steve Canyon Statue is othe most notable attraction in Idaho Spring, Colorado. The piece depicts the fictional character of Canyon, who represents an ideal that the city came to embrace in multiple ways. However, the context and history that it represents have become an afterthought for the modern community.
Created as a comic character in 1947 by Milton Caniff, Steve Canyon was an easygoing adventurer with a soft heart. The character returned to the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War and stayed in the military for the remainder of the strip’s run. In later years he was involved in Air Force intelligence and operations. The character became so popular that he was sometimes referred to as the unofficial spokesman for the Air Force.
The city of Idaho Springs fully embraced the ideals that Canyon represented, compelling the county to officially renamed a small gulch “Steve Canyon” in 1947. Two years later, the city convinced the U.S. Department of the Treasury to pay the Indiana Limestone Company $12,000 to carve a larger-than-life statue of the character. A marker on the statue mentions how the department salutes the character and everyone who served the nation in the sale of Independence Saving Bonds, which the Steve Canyon character was involved with in a major way.
Dedicated in 1950, the Steve Canyon Statue was an important part of the community but the strip ended in 1988, limiting how modern audiences are able to contextualize the piece. Now standing in Courtney-Riley-Cooper Park, the Steve Canyon Statue is a tribute to an outlook that defined an era and the power of an ideal. It has the potential to be showcased and built upon in a whole new way, positively changing the space and community to better connect the past and future of the entire region.
