‘It’s finally home.’ Iconic goose head returns to top of Eastern KY bed and breakfast.

After ice, rain and wind pelted the Mother Goose Inn in March, the building’s iconic goose head came tumbling down and shattered in the parking lot of the Hazard bed and breakfast.

On Friday, after months of piecing together splintered wood, the head was reinstalled.

Alice McIntosh, the owner of Mother Goose Inn, was devastated when the head fell March 24.

“I cried,” McIntosh. “I was really sad. It was one of those things I wouldn’t believe until I saw it.”

But Friday was a happy day for McIntosh.

“I was tickled to death,” she said. “It’s finally home.”

Passersby stopped to watch the Mother Goose become intact throughout Friday. Neighbor Leigh Anne Stephens stood across the street as they installed the head.

Stephens recalled the sad day when the head fell.

“It was like a death for everyone,” she said.

The 81-year-old Mother Goose Inn is a large part of Hazard, a community of about 5,200 people. Stephens remembers as a kid getting ice cream and asking her parents to drive by the goose. After the head fell off, she snuck across the street to pray that night, one-by-one cars began to pull in joining her in a prayer circle that wrapped around the three-bedroom, one-bedroom inn.

She said the mother goose looked like “a spring chicken” once it was installed.

The goose’s health was declining. McIntosh said in photos she could tell the head was beginning to tip forward over the years. On that windy March day, the head finally fell.

McIntosh had begun conversations with the Kentucky Heritage Council, the state’s historic preservation office, but before executive director Craig Potts was able to trek to Hazard the head fell off.

Potts said Mother Goose Inn is totally unique to Kentucky and people all around the world have an interest and love for it.

As a state historic preservation officer, Potts has seen a fair share of neglected and abused historical buildings that can still be brought back. He had no doubt Mother Goose could make a return.

Potts said seeing the goose head crumpled up on the parking lot was really sad.

He is impressed with the outpouring from the community to reinstall the goose’s head.

“A lot of the outpouring of support really made the difference,” Potts said.

The Mother Goose Inn had a GoFundMe page set up prior to it falling, which raised more than $11,000. Community members conducted fundraisers selling t-shirts and hot dog lunches. The owners raised $2,500 to qualify for a matching grant. The owners will also receive another grant from the State Historic Preservation Office.

The Mother Goose Inn was founded by George and Ollie Stacy, McIntosh’s great uncle and aunt. The family would cook a goose for Thanksgiving, which prompted the idea of a building with a goose head. McIntosh grew up listening to her Aunt Ollie tell stories about Mother Goose Inn, knowing that one day it would be given to her.

The inn had blueprints, but no plans of the goose.

Keith Miller, who handled the reconstruction of the goose, looked at photos of the inn and the parts of the structure that was still in tact to put the head back together -- similar to putting together a puzzle. Miller had to duplicate some of the pieces.

He was up for the challenge, though at the beginning he asked himself “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

For 10 weekends, Miller worked to reconstruct the Mother Goose. Last weekend, the beak was installed and painted orange, its original color.

Miller added a steel skeleton to replace the original one. The steel roof made the goose slightly lighter — now weighing 2,900 pounds, it is more than 17 feet tall.

Mother Goose Inn has some more repairs before it will be ready for stays, including installing a front door, new gutters and repairing some of the stone work. McIntosh is planning to move away from the bed and breakfast operations to short term rentals. She does not have an estimated reopening day.