User:Generalissima/Daniel Boone Bicentennial half dollar

Background
Daniel Boone was an American frontiersman and an early settler of Kentucky. He was hired to cut the Wilderness Road in 1775, a vital early settler route running through the Cumberland Gap to the Kentucky River. His fame as a woodsman and longhunter led to significant literary coverage and status as a prominent folk hero. A bust of Boone had previously appeared on the 1921 Missouri Centennial half dollar.

In early 1934, the Lexington, Kentucky-based Daniel Boone Bicentennial Commission, headed by C. Frank Dunn, partnered with the Boone Family Association to press for a commemorative half dollar for the two-hundredth anniversary of Boone's birth in order to raise money to restore historic sites associated. They were able to gain the support of Kentucky Senator Alben W. Barkley to propose a bill. It passed on May 26, 1934.

Henry Augustus Lukeman, a prolific sculptor of public monuments, was chosen to design the coin. In addition to a number of other Civil War memorials, he briefly managed construction of the Stone Mountain Memorial beginning in 1925.

Design
The Daniel Boone Bicentennial Commission initially insisted that Lukeman base his depiction of Boone on Albin Polasek's bust of the frontiersman. Writing to Dunn, Lukeman explained that Polasek's depiction was impossible to transpose onto a coin design beyond the silhouette. Instead, Lukeman's bust was inspired by an 1834 engraving by James B. Longacre in his National Portrait Gallery Of Distinguished Americans, as well as a fanciful illustration in the 1847 History of Kentucky. Cornelius Vermeule describes the depiction as owing "as much to Italian Renaissance heads of Julius Caesar" to Boone's physical appearance.

Lukeman's model of Boone was disputed by William Boone Douglass, the president of the Boone Family Association. Douglass claimed that the Polasek bust was Boone's most accurate depiction, and demanded it be followed. However, the Lexington Herald (regarded by Douglass as an authoritative source on Boone) eventually approved of Lukeman's model, ending further controversy over the depiction.

Distribution
In 1937, three matte proof issues were produced in extremely small numbers. These are well-struck in comparison to the business strike, with much sharper lettering.