The Laran Bronze Foundry may be the best-kept secret in Delaware County.

Located on East Sixth Street in Chester, in a giant complex that was previously a part of the city’s once-thriving shipbuilding industry, Laran Bronze is one of the world’s premier foundries for fine-art casting.

Brothers Larry and Randy Welker are the “La” and “Ran” of Laran Bronze, established in 1984. Their magnum opus is the National World War II Memorial, unveiled in 2004 in Washington, D.C.

“We’re working on other people’s artwork who might have worked on a piece for two, three years, entrusting us to take a clay piece and turn it into something that will be viewed,” said Larry. “It’s an honor.”

“It’s amazing that people don’t know about this,” renowned sculptor Zenos Frudakis of Glenside in Montgomery County once told the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Frudakis has entrusted more than 100 of his major pieces to Laran Bronze. Among them: his 5,150-pound U.S. Air Force Memorial Honor Guard sculpture, now installed at Arlington National Cemetery.

“I have pieces in Japan and Africa, and they’re all cast from here,” Frudakis said. “They’re a treasure. They’ve done so many monuments around the country.”

Laran Bronze’s most recent work to hit the news is its restoration of a bronze statue of Robert G. Ingersoll that has sat in Glen Oak Park in Peoria, Ill., since 1911.

The statue of the lawyer, philosopher, Civil War veteran, and one-time Attorney General of Illinois was removed May 10, and transported to Chester for repairs.

According to the Peoria Journal Star, a re-dedication ceremony for the newly restored statue will be held in the park on Aug. 11, the 183rd anniversary of Ingersoll’s birth, at 10:30 AM.