HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Statue of Liberty Copper Stone, Karmøy Gift

New York, New York County, New York

Marker Inscription

This stone from the mine that produced the copper in the Statue of Liberty was brought with the sailing ship "Sørlandet" as a gift to the United States of America from the citizens of Karmøy, Norway. July 4, 1986

The Story

The Statue of Liberty's famous copper skin was mined an ocean away, at a copper works on the Norwegian island of Karmøy. In 1986, to mark the statue's centennial, the people of Karmøy chose a stone from that very mine and sent it across the Atlantic aboard the tall ship Sørlandet as a gift to the United States. Set near the harbor that frames Lady Liberty, the stone turns an abstract fact — where the metal came from — into something you can stand beside and touch.

Why it matters

It reveals the international roots of America's most recognizable icon: a monument famously gifted by France, possibly clad in copper drawn from Norway, and here honored again by a small Norwegian community a century later. The stone is a quiet reminder that the symbol of American liberty was assembled from the wider world's contributions.

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Related events

  • · Statue of Liberty centennial (1986)

Themes & tags

ImmigrationIndustry & InventionMining HistoryMonument

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