ON THE SCRAP HEAP: HISTORY
By Roger Alford
Kentucky.com
Mon, Oct. 06, 2008
KY
FRANKFORT — Gene Ray cringes at the irreverence of thieves who would
steal historical markers to sell as scrap metal.
Ray, a great-great-great-great-great grandson of famed frontiersman
Daniel Boone, is calling for tougher sentences for people caught
plundering the bronze, brass, copper and aluminum plaques displayed
across the country to commemorate places of historical significance.
The issue arose after a man was sentenced in August to only four
months in jail for stealing a $10,000 plaque marking the original
Missouri burial site for Boone. Cut into pieces, the Boone marker
sold as scrap for less than $100.
"We were all just horrified," said Ray, an Atlanta resident. "That this
would happen, especially to someone of such historical significance,
infuriated many of us."
In the Western Kentucky city of Henderson, investigators are trying
to find out who took a cast aluminum marker that stood in front of
the onetime home of Gov. Augustus Owsley Stanley, who was elected in
1915. The newly refurbished marker disappeared about two months ago,
said Ronnie Browning, a superintendent in the state transportation
office in Madisonville.
In California, thieves stole a 160-pound bronze plaque last year
from the base of San Francisco’s Mount Davidson Cross. The plaque
honored victims of Armenian genocide from 1915 to 1918. Police notified
recycling plants in the San Francisco area to be on the lookout for the
marker. So far, it hasn’t been found. The Council of Armenian American
Organizations of Northern California paid $11,000 for a new marker.
Browning said the markers make easy targets for thieves because they’re
accessible and can be easily ripped from their posts or foundations. He
said he is convinced metal salvagers took the 60-pound aluminum marker
commemorating Gov. Stanley. Though such markers cost more than $2,000
to make, Browning said they probably would fetch relatively little
cash at scrap yards.
Copper was bringing $2.25 per pound on Friday at Baker Iron & Metal
Co. in Lexington. Aluminum, depending on its quality, was bringing
43 cents to 55 cents a pound. Copper alloys like brass and bronze
were just over $1 a pound.
Prices have been declining in recent months, said Bob Garino,
commodities director for the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries
Inc. in Washington.
"We’re seeing some lows that we really haven’t seen in quite some
time," he said.
Garino said wholesale prices for copper have fallen since September
from $3.15 a pound to $2.65 a pound, and aluminum is down from $1.17
to $1.04. He said the prices still are higher than five years ago,
when the average price for copper was 80 cents a pound and aluminum
was 65 cents a pound.
Cashing in with stolen scrap is risky in Kentucky and more than 30
other states where legislators have passed laws in recent years
requiring recyclers to notify police if they suspect someone has
dropped off stolen metal.
State Rep. Mike Denham, D-Maysville, said he thinks Kentucky’s law,
which went into effect July 15, has discouraged metal theft. The law
requires scrap dealers to record the names and addresses of people
who cash in recyclable metals.
Utility companies had pushed for the new law primarily to combat the
theft of copper, which has been stolen from power and telephone lines,
electrical substations and construction sites. Its ramifications
reach beyond copper wire to bronze grave markers, urns and flag
holders that can be melted down for quick cash.
Jerry Raisor, curator at Fort Boonesborough in Madison County,
said all kinds of monuments, even statues, are at risk of being
destroyed. Raisor said judges need to be tough with people who plunder
anything of historic value.
"It’s pretty pathetic," he said. "These are national treasures