Painting Dubuque: Landmarks
Julien Dubuque's Grave
Setup Space: Room for several artists to spread out but space limited for some sightlines
Restrooms: Not available
Food: None nearby
4th Street Elevator
Dubuque's 3 ft narrow gauge funicular railway, with claims to be shortest in the world
Need to Know: $3 round trip.
Setup Space: Sidewalks
Restrooms: Public restroom at 5th and Bluff, 1 block away.
Food: Near many downtown restaurants.
Dubuque Shot Tower
The Shot Tower is a tapered masonry column standing 120'5" above current ground level. Seven stories (82’11”) are of Galena Dolemite stone, and the upper three stories (37’6”) are of soft red brick. The masonry walls reduce from a three foot thickness at the base to one foot at the top. The base measures 19’2” square, the cap 12’4” square.
Lead was melted at the base of the tower, hoisted to the top, and poured through screens of different gauges to water vats below. The shot was then sorted and packed. When completed, the tower could produce 6 to 8 tons of shot daily, but it was rarely operated at full capacity due to being bought by a competitor 1862.
Setup Space: Be creative; stay out of truck routes
Restrooms: Brewery building on Riverwalk
Food: Stone Cliff Winery nearby
Wartburg Seminary
Wartburg Theological Seminary was founded in 1854 by a group of Lutheran ministers and teachers from Germany. The Romanesque architecture is styled after Wartburg Castle in Eisenach, Thuringia. There, in 1521, Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German, a language the people could understand.
The large statue of Luther in the central courtyard is a replica of the original sculpture by Ernst Rietschel for a monument in Worms, Germany. Sculpted above a seating area on the exterior of Fritschel Hall, the phrase, “Gottes Wort and Luther’s Lehr, vergehen nun and nimmer mehr” translates as “God's Word and Luther's teaching pass away now and never more.”
Interesting footnote - composer Felix Mendellsohn was born to a prominent Jewish family which converted to Lutheranism when he was 7. His great grandson, Paul Leo, a Lutheran pastor, was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp because of his Jewish bloodline, but somehow someone in the church got him out. He was evicted from Germany, emigrated to Argentina, and eventually came to the US and joined the Wartburg faculty. His wife, Eva, had studied metalwork in Germany and designed a beautiful set of copper doors that have recently been moved to the inside of the building due to wear. If you paint here, enter the front doors to view. The Au used to climb the tower to the clock as a kid, but it is now closed off from the public.
Setup Space: Plentiful
Restrooms: Enter front entrance
Food: None available in area