Posted on: 10:36 pm, October 11, 2012, by Andy Fales, updated on: 10:37pm, October 11, 2012

For many of us, shes a figure who prompts a story

Of the ones who brought us here

Before we were Americans, we were immigrantsexiles in some respects.

Everybody who came through Ellis Island, says Bobby Tursi,whose father immigrated here from Calabria, Italy as a young man,that was the first thing that they saw was the Statue of Liberty before being processed into the new world.

The Tursis have celebrated their immigrant heritage through the Latin King restaurant for thirty years, now, but today, they reconnected to Lady Liberty through their new business.

The Statue of Liberty was known as the Mother of Exiles to the immigrants coming over, says RJ Tursi, who runs the new Exile Brewing Company at 14th and Wlanut in Des Moines.

Thats exactly what it looks like. A full scale model of her crown. 27 feet across, designed by local sculptor, James Ellwanger.

One of the owners was down here and I drove by and I just said, Ive got an idea for this, Ellwanger says.

It was hardly a cheap project.$25,000 in copper alone, weighing 7,000 pounds. The building needed thousands more in structural work just to support it. But the Tursis loved the idea.

Read more:

LIBERTY’S CROWN: Local Restaurant Honors Our Past