The Boy with the Leaking Boot

The Boy with the Leaking Boot is a statue showing a young boy, with a bare right foot, holding up his right boot and looking at it. The statue is about 4 feet (1.2 m) tall, and in many cases forms a fountain, with water emerging from the toe of the boot. There are at least 24, and reportedly "hundreds" of examples. The origin of the statue is thought to be an Italian design sold to an American manufacturer. There are several theories claiming that the boy is a young Italian newspaper seller who drowned, or, less likely given the original design, an American army drummer-boy who carried water in his leaking boot to help fallen comrades, or a young fire-fighter either using his boot in a bucket chain or emptying his boot after an incident, or possibly none of these. The statue has also been called The Boy with the Leaky Boot, Boy Immigrant and Unfortunate Boot.

Statues in the United States

Among the earliest statues is that in Sandusky, Ohio, where it stood in front of the Porter House hotel on the shore of Lake Erie. The original zinc statue was brought from Germany in 1876 by a prominent local couple, Mr and Mrs Voltaire Scott. After cyclone damage and several incidents of vandalism, the statue was moved to the lobby of the local City Hall, and a replacement bronze was installed in a fountain in Washington Park.

In Helena, Montana, a statue stood in front of the "Natatorium", built in 1889 and housing the then-largest indoor plunge pool in the world, as part of the Broadwater Hotel complex.