File:Soldiers' Memorial Monument, Niagara Falls State Park, Niagara Falls, New York - 20221222.jpg

English: The Soldiers' Memorial Monument stands tall and proud near the entrance to Niagara Falls State Park in Niagara Falls, New York, as seen on a drizzly December 2022 afternoon. Dedicated in 1876 in honor of veterans and casualties of the then-recently concluded Civil War who hailed from the Town of Niagara, which at that time also included the entirety of the present-day City of Niagara Falls, the monument consists of a handsome mustachioed figure of a soldier in Union military garb holding his musket butt to the ground and standing atop a 30-foot tapered octagonal granite shaft. An unusual Gothic Revival aesthetic influence is brought to bear especially toward the monument's bottom end: quatrefoil reliefs figure on the sides of the shaft's base, while the pedestal is adorned with pointed arches and stylized plaster strips in addition to the metal panels that record the names of local war dead. The initial idea for its construction dates back to 1866, when members of the local Soldiers' Relief Committee were brainstorming possible productive uses for the $250 surplus that remained in their budget after their operations had drawn to a close. This Monument Fund increased over the next few years through the disbursement of additional public monies, principally proceeds from the village government's sale of a decommissioned former cemetery. Finally, a Board of Commissioners was convened in April 1876 and tasked with "proceed[ing] with the erection of said monument as soon as practicable to the end that the same may be completed within the centennial year of 1876". This entailed hastily selecting a builder (stonemason Albert E. Weeks of the Glenwood Marble Company of Lockport) and artist (whose exact identity has been lost to time, though a blurb in the Niagara Falls Gazette refers to him as "a professional sculptor from New York City"), determining a site where the monument should be built (among the alternate proposals was a "most eligible lot in Oakwood Cemetery for the nominal consideration of one dollar", rejected due to its great distance from the village center), and - most challengingly - compiling the list of names, ranks, regiments, and dates and places of death of local war casualties which would be inscribed on the monument's base, a major hurdle in regard to which was the incompleteness of the available information. When the contract with the stonemason was drawn up, the roster of names numbered eighteen, with enough space left over on the stone panels for up to six more; however, after this first draft was published in the Niagara Falls Gazette alongside appeals to readers for additions and corrections to the list, it nearly doubled in length, necessitating a redesign of the monument whose cost was thankfully defrayed by a last-minute fundraising appeal by newspaper staff. As well, the local citizenry was invited by the commissioners to donate historical relics for placement in a tin box that would be sealed in the base of the monument, of which an itemized list - comprising primarily newspapers and other documents, coins and banknotes (including some Confederate scrip), and photographs - remains filed in the city records. The monument was finally dedicated on the 22nd of the following August in ceremonies that included a parade, musical performances, and a patriotic oration by prominent Buffalo attorney and politico James M. Willett. Notably, the monument was put in place nine years before the establishment of the Niagara Reservation - America's first state park, which was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted to restore and preserve the natural environs around the falls - and is significant as the only element of the preexisting built environment that Olmsted allowed to remain on the grounds of the park. However, in 1962, it was moved 140 feet from its original location, at what was once the corner of Falls and Canal Streets, to a more prominent setting at the confluence of several of the winding footpaths he had laid out.