Lady Rainier may hoist her glass in new park

She sits behind a huge green garbage bin in a sea of Sound Transit equipment at the Tully's Coffee company building just off Interstate 5 Georgetown.

She is Lady Rainier.

The lady, a statue with a dark bronze patina, is actually a fountain that for years has been idle and hidden from public view.

Now, Georgetown activists want to give her a new home with a more well-known urban landmark, Hat 'n' Boots, the one-time gas station that was moved from a site off Highway 99 to the neighborhood's new Oxbow Park on Corson Avenue South in 2003.

Lady Rainier holds a beer glass in an outstretched hand and, when the fountain is working, water pours out of the glass like beer foam.

It's estimated that moving and restoring the fountain statue could cost $30,000.

"Like Hat 'n' Boots, Lady Rainier is something the residents and community members connect with," said Shannon Donohue, vice chairwoman of the Georgetown Community Council. "She feels like part of us, and having her come home is something the community passionately wants. She means Georgetown."

The 10-foot statue was imported from Germany in 1903 for Seattle Brewing and Malting, then the makers of Rainier Beer. It was installed in a courtyard at the brewery.

When the brewery was expanded in 1912, the statue was reinstalled atop the original brewery building.

The statue was moved here and there over the years as new owners came and went at the brewery, eventually ending up at what is now Tully's base.

When Stroh Brewery, which purchased the Rainier brand, decided to sell the building in 1999, it offered many of the historical brewery icons, such as the big red letter R, to the Museum of History Industry (MOHAI)

Lady Rainier was part of the package.

"It's a great piece of outdoor artwork," said Feliks Banel, spokesman for MOHAI. "If there's a willing and able group in Georgetown, we see it as a great situation. It lets us preserve the artifact and lets it be accessible to a lot of people."

Banel sees it as part of what he calls the "windshield museum," artifacts that are out in the open that anyone can see.

"She needs to be a fountain again," said Allan Phillips, another Georgetown activist. "Sticking her inside a building on display is not what the intention was originally."

Georgetown already has a place for Lady Rainier in Oxbow Park, which was dedicated last summer. The statue would sit on a grass mound across from Hat 'n' Boots.

Donohue said the neighborhood will try to raise the money needed to move the fountain to the park, possibly by applying for a grant. If the money can be raised, she said, she hopes the statute could be in its new home by next summer.

"There's a mound that was intended originally for her when the park design was put together," Phillips said. "She should be in a park and visible to the world."

Susan Gilmore: 206-464-2054 or sgilmore@seattletimes.com