Soldiers’ Monument; Downtown Dayton, Ohio

This large monument to soldiers of the Civil War is sited within a median of Main Street and punctuates the north end of Downtown.

Key Details:

The monument was originally placed at the intersection of Main Street and Monument Avenue in downtown Dayton.  The square base rested in the middle of the intersection without much protection from vehicles.  As vehicular traffic grew in downtown, the monument became an impediment to motorists and caused traffic jams.  As a solution, the statue was relocated across the Great Miami River in a park where it rested until 1991.  As part of an urban design plan, the monument was relocated back to Main Street in a location just south of its original home.  A median was built in Main Street to accommodate it and includes a plaza with seating and interpretive signage.

The monument is a total of 85 feet in height and the statue itself 11.5′ tall.  The statue was originally crafted from carved white marble, but was badly damaged by acid rain.  As part of the relocation, a bronze cast of the monument was created as a replacement and rests atop the monument today.

If You Go:

This monument is on the north side of Downtown and is close to a number of theaters including the Victoria Theater and Schuster Performing Arts Center.  Riverscape Metro Park is just to the north along the riverfront.

Sources:

http://daytonology.blogspot.com/2008/08/monument-good-urban-design.html

http://content.daytonmetrolibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/lutzenberge/id/217

This work by Matt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.