Liberty Island outmoded and obsolete, disused and its substantial stone walls were then used as the distinctive base for the Statue of Liberty given by the Third French Republic for the American 1876 centenary celebrations. It had become a part of the base for the Statue of Liberty after the island was first seen by Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, the statue's sculptor. The National Park Service (which had been created in 1916) took over operations of the island in two stages: in 1933, and the remainder in 1937. The military installation was completely removed by 1944. The statue, entitled "Liberty Enlightening the World",
Statue of Liberty defeat by the Prussians. One of these was the "Lion of Belfort", a monumental sculpture carved in sandstone below the fortress of Belfort, which during the war had resisted a Prussian siege for over three months. The defiant lion, long and half that in height, displays an emotional quality characteristic of Romanticism, which Bartholdi would later bring to the Statue of Liberty. Bartholdi and Laboulaye considered how best to express the idea of American liberty. In early American history, two female figures were frequently used as cultural symbols of the nation. One of these symbols, the personified Columbia, was seen