Duluth’s Parks and Recreation division has been working with community members to gather ideas for a new World War I memorial to be built in Memorial Park in West Duluth. After surveying the public and hosting public discussions, the city’s consultant has drafted three conceptual designs based on submitted feedback and is once again seeking public input on three concepts.
The overhaul of a neglected West Duluth park honoring local war veterans has been delayed and downsized as city officials develop new plans without a multi-million dollar community center anchoring the project.
Duluth city officials said a two-year-old plan calling for more than $7 million in Memorial Park improvements failed to receive federal funding and a needed community center business partnership. The setback means planning will be reopened to public discussion early in 2017.
As noted in the Perfect Duluth Day story “Planners take another look at West Duluth’s Memorial Park,” a majority of the bronze plates memorializing West Duluth servicemen who died in World War I are either missing or damaged. Above are images of some of the more deteriorated and/or vandalized markers. Of the original 22, just seven remain in place and in good condition.
The markers were planted under trees in 1928 and read: “This tree planted in memory of (name) killed (date) for God and country.”
The community center building at Memorial Park in West Duluth is no more. The PDD Drone did a fly through on Sunday for posterity.
The relic in the photo above is a Lockheed F-94C Starfire. It was on display at Memorial Park in West Duluth from May 1960 until October 1996 (photo of its removal above). It is not the same airplane that is currently displayed in the parking lot of American Legion Post 71.
