CHS has learned that a $9,000 porcelain-enamel and steel panel stolen from an exhibit inside the Volunteer Park water tower last July has been found. According to Kay Rood of the Cal Anderson Park Alliance, the latest issue of the Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks newsletter reports that Seattle Parks staff found the interpretive panel in a perennial bed at the park. Quite a few questions in that starting with when and then onto why and how. Maybe who. We’ll update when we know more.

“We can’t quite understand why anyone would take it and why anyone would want it,” Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks board member Jerry Arbes told CHS back in July. “It’s not something you’d want to hang on your wall. The only hope is somebody thought they wanted it and then changed their mind.”

The panel illustrates the interrelationship of Seattle’s Water System with Seattle’s parks and was part of a $20,000 installation in the tower completed in 1997.

According to the Seattle Police Department report on the theft, a parks employee said the panel was ripped from the brick wall of the tower sometime between Tuesday and Wednesday night, June 24th. There were no signs of forced entry reported at the scene meaning the thief or thieves likely removed the 3-foot by 4-foot metal panel while it was light out and the park was still busy with people.

CHS offered a $300 reward for the panel’s return.