Photo courtesy of Flickr | JPELLGEN
World War I memorial in Kansas City, MO.
Not long after the Great War concluded, Missourians were actively working to honor the state’s veterans. In 1919, the Missouri Legislature offered up to a thousand dollars in matching funds to each county for a monument, bronze plaque or memorial hall.
Many memorials were erected in post-war years and placed on county courthouse lawns. But as time went on, attention to these memorials (and the war itself) faded from our cultural memory.
The library staff worked to create a list of memorials and their locations but realized it was incomplete, as the sources they used missed some memorials that they knew existed. Using Google Map’s satellite and street views, they searched courthouse lawns for possible memorials and then set out to document these memorials.
Now they're asking for your help to locate and photograph the rest. "We ask you to go into your community, search for your county or local memorials to World War I veterans, photograph the memorials, and submit them to the project," the organizers say.
Digital photograph submissions and descriptive information can be sent to [email protected] Be sure to follow the project on Facebook for the most recent memorial findings and shared photographs.
This project is part of Over There: Missouri and the Great War — a statewide collaborative digitization project to document Missouri’s role in World War I.
The interactive map to date can be viewed here.
