It took over two hours, a handful of borough workers, a backhoe and crane to lift the iconic 200-pound fireman statue from itsbase in Slatington on Monday morning.

The statue, created and constructed in 1910, had only been moved from its home once before now - when a car careened into the base in 1979.In 2017, the more than 6-foot-tall statue is in need of serious repair due to the corrosion that has encrusted the plate between the cast-iron base and zinc statue.Slatington Hose Company No. 1 President Lee Vogel said the rust began to gather on the inside of the structure after it was reinstalled after the car crashin 1979, losing its head while a boot was crushed. After nine months, the head was reattached, the boot was buffed out and the statue was returned to its "Fireman's Curve" home."It had a French drain in it that ran along the curb, but after we redid it, we sealed it off. I think that's where a lot of our problem came from," he said.The statue will be stored at the borough's maintenance building while Tom Szoke of Slatington Fabrications brazes the base of the statue,Vogel said. Brazing is a type of welding technique that joins two metals by heating and melting a filler that bonds the two pieces of metaltogether."I've worked on different bases before, but not like this," Szoke said. "It's unique. It was really well thought out when it was constructed."A borough backhoe was brought to the Main Street location where a canvas strap was wrapped around the fireman while the base was chiseled away from the boots. The corroded iron crumbled beneath the drill used by committee member David Altrichter, who drilled through the rusted bolts holding the base and statue together."Last time, we had a forklift. We were in our early 20s then, and we were able to just slide it onto a pallet on the lift," Vogel said.Vogel said the hose company committee wanted to keep the work for the repairs made to the statue in the community.The 500 block of Main Street was shut down for a half-hour while the statue was lifted by a crane up and onto the bed of a borough truck as a crowd of residents took photos and video."We're very honored to have it here," said borough fire Chief Jason Nicholas. "It's a community fixture."Doris Brady has lived next to the statue for 30 years and said she was surprised to see the statue in the air Monday morning."It was a lot of commotion for the day. I just came out to get the mail and saw it was going on," she said."Now that it's gone it's going to look naked for a while. It's going to be sad, all the tourist people stop here and take pictures of it," Brady said.The borough fixture was ordered from New York's E.T. Barnum Company in the summer of 1909. The Slatington Hose Company had decided to take on the task of bringing a public drinking fountain to the block. It was intended to quench the thirst of horses, dogs and humans alike.The zinc and cast-iron structure originally cost $700, arriving in Slatington in mid-November. It was connected to the water main on Main Street. The statue was dedicated after the last snowflake fell in April while the Slatington, Emerald and Slatedale bands provided music for the crowd. American flags had covered the tall structure before the great unveiling that afternoon.The fireman statue is declared a state and national historic landmark.The committee hopes to get the repairs made along with sandblasting and refinishing the cast iron base before reattaching the symbolic statue to its home.