Vision of Peace

The Vision of Peace is a statue in the three-story memorial concourse lobby along the Fourth Street entrance of the Saint Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Courthouse in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. The memorial to war dead was created by Swedish sculptor Carl Milles. He drew on memories of a Native American ceremony he witnessed in Ponca City, Oklahoma, when he designed the statue, Indian God of Peace.

Although there is no connection between Native American spirituality and his own vision, Milles depicted five Native Americans seated around a fire and holding their sacred pipes. Emerging from the smoke of those pipes is a “god of peace” which Milles imagined speaking to “all the World.”

The statue weighs approximately 60 tons, stands 38 feet high, and was carved from creamy white Mexican onyx using Milles’ full-scale model. The statue sits on a revolving base which turns the figure 132 degrees every 2.5 hours. There are 98 sections fastened to a steel I-beam and supported by three-quarter inch bronze ribs.