Meet the people who are buying America’s rejected statues

The leaders of Newton Falls have declared their town a “sanctuary city” for unwanted statuary.

“History is a big part of this community’s identity — you can still dig up arrowheads in the fields — and we have acres of parks,” said Lynch. “Buying statues would be an expensive proposition. But by taking them from municipalities that would only put them into storerooms, we ­provide a good alternative.”…

While Newton Falls’ Lynch considers ­George Washington, Christopher Columbus and Theodore Roosevelt tributes to be no-brainers, he draws the line at statues that honor Confederate soldiers. Other communities have no such qualms.

Decision-makers at the University of Louisville in Kentucky became queasy about a monument ­commemorating Confederate soldiers killed in the Civil War and, according to historian Gerald W. Fischer, “were going to store it in a landfill.” Then the town of Brandenburg, Ky., claimed it to go with its Civil War Discovery Trail.