Ryan Patrick Hooper

Special to the Detroit Free Press

After 93 years, the case of the missing Michigan governor has been solved.

And it took decades for someone to even realize the bronze bust of Michigan Gov. John J. Bagley was hiding in the first place.

Its location might still be a mystery today if it wasn’t for that inquisitive Detroit history nerd on a mission.

Keeping the bust out of public display — and pretty much completely forgotten — for more than nine decades was not in the original game plan for honoring Michigan’s 16th governor.

But 142 years removed from his two-term stint as governor (1873-1877), it’s perhaps not surprising that most people can't tell you who first established the state Board of Health or whom Bagley Street in Detroit was named after.

Governor of Campus Martius

The monument to Bagley once prominently overlooked Campus Martius just south from the old Detroit Opera House (the One Campus Martius building occupies that real estate today).

Complete with plaque and podium and measuring just more than 3 feet tall, Bagley’s bust was surrounded by a low fence and placed steps from the Merrill Fountain, which was eventually relocated to Palmer Park.

The handsome depiction of Bagley was completed by 19th Century American sculptor Carl Herman Wehner in 1889.

More:Why it's a breakout fall for creators known as Vanguard Artist Collective

More:In Michigan's Thumb, Detroiters turn decades-old barns into art

He sports a wide-lapped coat and a prominent forehead. Following the fashion trends of the era, Bagley is sporting a long beard that’s as lush as the coat of a full-grown Maine Coon cat.

A pioneer in Detroit’s then-bustling tobacco industry, Bagley went on to make his name in city and state politics by sitting on the Detroit Common Council (the precursor to today’s city council) and becoming chairman of the Michigan Republican Party — a 19th Century version of the party that doesn’t much resemble today’s.

He passed away from tuberculosis four years after the end of his term as governor in 1881. When his statue was first placed at Campus Martius around 1889, it was clear that Bagley’s political career still echoed in the public’s collective memory.

But as the city rapidly expanded and Woodward Avenue was widened in 1926, Bagley’s bust was evicted from his perch in the park — and slowly faded into obscurity in the minds of most Michiganders.

The move was significant enough to get attention in the now-defunct Detroit Times newspaper, which wrote: “The ‘dignified governor’ will be stuck unceremoniously into storage until completion of the new art institute when he will occupy a place of honor in that structure.”

But that “place of honor” was never found.

There was talk of placing the bust on Belle Isle or perhaps in Grand Circus Park not far from Bagley’s former residence, but those plans never materialized.

In a 1931 article on the Detroit Institute of Art’s vast collection of stored-away art, the Free Press described the statue as “buried” alongside plaster casts of Plato and General Anthony Wayne.

And that’s where the trail goes cold — until local author and historian Dan Austin took up the case of what happened to Bagley’s bust.

Bagley bust ... or bust

The story of Bagley's bust does raise the question of whether something can truly be missing if no one is looking for it. But now Austin was on the hunt.

“As a history nerd, I had to know what happened to this bust,” says Austin, who founded the expansive Detroit architecture and history website HistoricDetroit.org and formerly worked at the Free Press.

“He was a revered figure in Michigan history,” says Austin. “People put him into storage and then he got forgotten about for almost 100 years.”

Austin says the mystery started for him about a decade ago when researching a book.

Austin uncovered that the City of Detroit’s Parks and Recreation Department actually owned the statue and dropped it off at the newly built DIA for safekeeping after its removal in 1926.

After it left Campus Martius, the bust resided in at least three spots: a DIA storage space, the basement of the DIA's current location, and then a climate-controlled DIA warehouse on the city’s east side. Essentially, the DIA had been babysitting the Bagley bust for nearly a century.

It might make you wonder how often pieces of art go missing in Detroit.

“At the museum, not very often,” says Barbara Heller, the director and conservator of special projects at the DIA for the past 40 years. Heller was contacted by Austin earlier this year to help him find the missing monument.

From there, it didn’t take long to figure out what happened.

“We’ve had this work of art since it was de-installed in 1926, so we’ve known where it was — it’s just not ours,” says Heller, who says it took mere minutes to locate the monument. “We’re taking care of it for future generations even though it doesn’t belong to us.”

With Bagley’s bust rediscovered, Austin is hopeful it can be put back on public display — perhaps in Grand Circus Park where other monuments to prominent local politicians like former Detroit mayor and Michigan governor Hazen S. Pingree currently sit.

“Does Detroit need another bronze bust of a wealthy white dude? Probably not,” says Austin, “but he was a prominent figure in Michigan’s history. It’s just that most people didn’t know he (was) such a prominent figure in 19th Century Detroit that they put a bust of him right in the heart of the city.”

Austin also helped bring Bagley’s bust to the attention of the City of Detroit. Officials there say they’re on board with finding a home for Bagley’s bust after dropping off their piece of art at the DIA 93 years ago.

“I’ll work with our historic team to take a look at the statue and work with the Detroit Historical Society to figure out next steps,” says Katy Trudeau, the new deputy director of planning and development for the City of Detroit.

Trudeau says she’ll work with city preservationists and historians to further uncover the history of Bagley’s bust — and hopefully find that “place of honor” it’s been seeking for decades.

“I’d prefer that outcome rather than it sitting in a storage facility owned by the city, but we’ve got to understand the history first,” says Trudeau.

Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly said that John J. Bagley served only one term as governor. He served two two-year terms.