In February 1979 Lady Liberty poked her head above the icy waters of Lake Mendota. Astonished local Wisconsin residents flocked to the lake to witness the bizarre spectacle. Unfortunately, she was only there for three weeks before she disappeared in a blaze of fire, the victim of arsonists. But the next year she returned (fireproofed this time) though again she didn't stick around for long. This time she fell victim to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, which determined that she resembled a fishing shanty and demanded that she be removed from the ice to satisfy their regulations. She was duly relocated to a shed.

The presence of Lady Liberty on Lake Mendota was the handiwork of Jim Mallon and Leon Varjian, the two leaders of the University of Wisconsin-Madison's notorious Pail and Shovel (P&S) party. That year the P&S party had assumed control of the student government (much to the dismay of their rivals), thanks to compelling campaign promises such as the pledge to dump the entire penny value of the student budget onto the ground and allow students to scoop up whatever they could get with a pail and shovel (hence the name of their party). Mallon and Varjian had also promised to buy the Statue of Liberty and bring it to Wisconsin. Being men of their word, they actually made good on their campaign vow, much to everyone's surprise.

Varjian claimed that the statue had been flown in by helicopter, but that the cable holding it had snapped causing Lady Liberty to crash through the ice until only the top of her head and her arm remained above water. In actuality, the statue had been constructed in a woodworking shop out of chicken wire, papier-mâché, and plywood and then moved out onto the ice. The plan was for the statue to appear overnight, but it actually took three days to erect (ensuring that absolutely no one believed Varjian's tale about the statue plummeting from a helicopter). Once in place it towered 40 feet above the surface of the ice.