The Spirit of Progress balances herself below the roof line of Boda Furniture on First Avenue. What’s in her left hand?
One day last week I was on First Avenue in downtown Albany, looking around. When I raised my eyes I noticed, for the first time, a thinly clad lady raising a torch in her right hand. Her left hand had hold of something else, but I had no idea what.
What was she doing there, under the roof line of the three-story building at 104 First Avenue S.E., the home of Boda Furniture for more than 20 years?
And what was that thing in her left hand? From the context it was safe to assume it was not a pickleball racket.
There’s a label or inscription under her foot, but it is hard to make out.
Hoping to learn more, I walked into the store on Sunday afternoon. Rick Young was on duty. He knows the history of the building and was able to clear up, right away, the mystery of that image on the wall outside.
The key to understanding is that the building was constructed in 1929 for Montgomery Ward. Also at about that time, the nationwide mail order business and chain of retail stores had just built a new administration building at its Chicago headquarters.
And on top of that Chicago high rise, the company placed a statue it called “The Spirit of Progress.” The statue became a symbol of the company nationwide, and that’s how a likeness of it found itself on the facade of the new building in Albany.
By the time I got home that day, Young had texted me an online link to an extensive story on the statue published in Chicago. I’m grateful for his interest and for helping me close this gap in my knowledge of local history.
The online archives of the Albany Democrat-Herald and Greater Oregon, both available at newspapers.com, told me that Montgomery Ward continued operating at First and Lyon until 1938, when it moved to another department store at Second and Broadalbin.
Just a month or two ago in Chicago, as I discovered in another online search, the original Spirit of Progress was hoisted back up on the former Montgomery Ward tower after being restored. You can read about it and see photos of the statue here.
So what’s that thing in the lady’s left hand? It’s a caduceus, a symbol of commerce that has come down through the ages from ancient Greece.
May the Spirit of Progress symbolize commercial success for the furniture store she adorns, and for the rest of Albany’s downtown. (hh)
The Boda Furniture Building from across First Avenue on Nov. 25, 2025, with the statue’s image at the top left.
Thank you for sharing this piece of Albany history!
Good Lord, cannot we have any kind of site that is immune to advertisements anymore ?
Very nice. Thanks for the story, Hasso. But, message to downtown: Please fix the sign splitting in two above the sidewalk in front of an antique store on 2nd Street. Also, sand and paint the edges of the awning on the Antique Mall building on 2nd and Ellsworth.
In mythology, the caduceus was carried by Mercury, the messenger god, as a badge of diplomatic ambassadors associated with commerce. It was a staff with two snakes intertwined and topped off with a pair of wings.
The god of medicine was Aesculopius, the son of Zeus. he was represented by the Staff of Aesculopius with was a staff with only one snake wrapped around it.
In 1902, the United States Army Medical Corps (USAMC) developed a new uniform code with a new shoulder insignia. By not understanding the Greek myths or what other countries had done with the Staff of Aesculopius, they utilized the more symmetrical caduceus for their insignia. Thus most Americans, and most physicians, associate the caduceus with medicine as opposed to the appropriate Staff of Aesculopius.
Great story! Thanks, Hasso!
Thank you for your curiosity! What a great history lesson and thanks to Dave Fitchett for telling us more about the caduceus.
It’s not clear…has this been here the whole time and we just hadn’t noticed ? or was it recently restored and hoisted,like Chicago’s?
This was a fun and interesting article! Thank you.
Hasso before it was Boda
furniture store, it was McManns`s furniture and before that it was Frager`s furniture store
The statue in Chicago which was recently refurbished and reinstalled is 22.5 tall (taller than I had imagined!).