Nittany Lion Shrine

A wooded area west of Kern Building is the Nittany Lion Shrine, home of Penn State's famous mascot, the Nittany Lion. The Nittany Lion became Penn State's athletic symbol in 1904 when Harrison D. "Joe" Mason, confronted at a Princeton-Penn State baseball game by Princeton's Bengal tiger, responded with quick wit that Penn State's Nittany Mountain Lion was the "fiercest beast of them all." He eventually was successful in persuading the student body to accept the animal as its mascot.

The Nittany Lion Shrine is one of the most photographed spots on campus. On graduation day a long line of students dressed in cap and gown and their families wait for a quick snapshot at the shrine. The statue was created by Heinz Warneke in 1940 from a 13-ton block of Indiana limestone, as a likeness of the mountain lion that once roamed Nittany Valley. The Nittany Lion has been Penn State's mascot since 1907 but was not officially recognized until this statue was presented as a gift to the University in 1942 from the Class of 1940. The sculptor was made an honorary alumnus of Penn State as a special thanks. Warneke returned in 1979, at the age of 84, to examine one of the lion's ears damaged by vandals in the fall of 1978. He prepared a cast for a new ear, which was put in place by master carver Vincenzo Palumbo, head stonecutter at Washington's National Cathedral. Palumbo used a variety of powder chisels to translate Warneke's clay model into a limestone ear, restoring the statue in time for the season's football opener in 1979. A cast of the sculpture was made in the event of additional damage. Palumbo returned again in 1994 to repair a damaged ear.