SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - The Springfield-Greene County Library District and the Missouri Humanities Council are working to rediscover World War I monuments and preserve community history, but they need the help of Missouri residents.
Shortly after the conclusion of the Great War, Missourians worked to commemorate and honor the service and sacrifice of the state's veterans. These commemorative projects took many different forms. In 1919, the Missouri Legislature offered up to $1,000 in matching funds to each county for a monument, bronze plaque or memorial hall in honor of the war's veterans. Across Missouri, plaques, carved stone memorials and bronzed doughboy memorials were erected.
As time went on, and a second war with Germany unfolded, attention to these memorials, and the war itself, faded from the forefront of cultural memory. For the war's centennial, the Springfield-Greene County Library District and the Missouri Humanities Council have partnered to help our state rediscover these memorials through an interactive online map. The project is part of the larger Over There: Missouri and the Great War website (missourioverthere.org).
An unknown number of World War I memorials are scattered across our state. Springfield-Greene County Library District staff worked to create a list of memorials and their locations. They knew this list was incomplete as several known memorials, such as the one on the Pettis County Courthouse lawn in Sedalia, were not included in the found sources. Many of the memorials were placed on county courthouse lawns. Library staff utilized Google Map's satellite and street views to search courthouse lawns for possible memorials. Library staff then set out to document these memorials, traveling across Missouri to photograph the memorials they encountered.
The Springfield-Greene County Library District worked with Demi Creative, a Springfield-based web design team, to develop the interactive map with these locations and photographs. Library staff also added historical photographs relevant to the memorials, such as a photo of the Bates County memorial dedication found at the Bates County Historical Society in Butler. The interactive map can be viewed at missourioverthere.org/explore/monuments.
The work on this project is far from over. The Springfield-Greene County Library District and the Missouri Humanities Council need help. Not every Missouri World War I memorial has been located, and only some have been photographed. The library asks residents to go into their communities, search for county or local memorials to World War I veterans, photograph the memorials and submit them to the project. Digital photographs and descriptive information can be sent to [email protected]. Follow the Missouri Over There project on Facebook for the most recent memorial identifications and shared photographs. Our goal is to locate and document every World War I memorial in our state.