thought, was Virginia City, where Mackay had operated. But Virginia City was in worse shape than Carson.
He came one night to the home of Sam Davis, after a weary day with a government committee, and asked if he would object to communicating with Mr. Mackay about where to put his father’s statue. Sam burst into laughter. “You’re growing up,” he said. “Go as far as you please.”
Gutzon picked up the telephone and called Joseph Stubbs, president of the University of Nevada at Reno. He never could explain why he picked President Stubbs except that he had met him and found him to be just the sort of man to develop a university in that sort of town. At any rate, he called and asked, “Would it interest you to have a statue of John W. Mackay on the campus of your university?” And Stubbs said, “Certainly ... or is this a joke?”
At Gutzon’s suggestion the president sent a telegram to Clarence Mackay asking him if he would consider having the statue in Reno on the university campus. Next morning the sculptor received a telegraphic order to call on President Stubbs. A place for the memorial was located at the upper end of the campus facing the sun. It was behind a corrugated-iron shack which bore the label “School of Mines.”
In a short time the statue was dedicated with proper ceremonies and a tremendous turnout of important people. Clarence Mackay, who brought his friends from New York in a private car, didn’t like the School of Mines structure as a background for his father. So he telegraphed architect Stanford White in New York to come out and lay plans for a new one. The result was a new building which cost, before Mackay equipped it, $475,000. After that came a second and a third building which, with Mackay’s endowments, cost somewhere over $1,500,000.
That, to all intents and purposes, was the beginning of a new life for the University of Nevada. The statue that led to it cost, complete and erected, $12,000.
And it led to other things, too. Clarence Mackay was obviously a satisfied customer. He wrote to Sam Davis that he was so pleased that he had tried to discharge some of his debt of gratitude by recommending the sculptor to the sponsors of the Sheridan Memorial to be erected in Washington. Gutzon was definitely gratified. His study of the Civil War in preparing the model for the Grant competition had made him familiar with its leaders. And he loved Sheridan’s saltiness, activity and audacious courage.