With its President Lincoln dinner one day away, and four Parrott Rifle carriages delivered last week, the Veterans Memorial Committee is another two steps closer to its goal of building a new memorial at Woodland Cemetery.

Monday, February 12, 2001

With its President Lincoln dinner one day away, and four Parrott Rifle carriages delivered last week, the Veterans Memorial Committee is another two steps closer to its goal of building a new memorial at Woodland Cemetery.

Judge Frank McCown, chairman of the committee, calls the project a more accurate and appropriate memorial for living and deceased veterans.

Committee members have raised tens of thousands of dollars since fall to restore and rehabilitate four Civil War-era Parrott Rifles in Woodland Cemetery, to place them on historic reproduction carriages, to place monuments and markers in the cemetery, and to pave a path with memorial bricks listing veterans.

The memorials, including rifles, a monument and a flagpole will be placed on a point overlooking U.S. 52 from the cemetery. It’s 31 feet above the centerline.

Add lights and 54-inch high silvered letters on each eight-foot black marble stone monument, and the sight will become a breathtaking honor, McCown said.

This will be a permanent project that will last forever – a way for people in the community to honor these who have served the nation, he said.

Now that the rifle carriages have arrived, the next step is to restore the rifles themselves, place them on the carriages and continue fund-raising efforts for the remainder of the project. About 30 members of the committee gathered last Thursday to discuss such plans.

The committee plans to hand out more brochures – the first 300,000 are gone – and a six-member volunteer group will pass some out at this year’s Ironton Memorial Day parade.

Seats at Tuesday’s dinner with Lincoln are sold out but many opportunities to help remain, the committee said.