101-foot monument to get lights

FORT RECOVERY - Work is expected to begin today on a three-part project that will shine a light on the Fort Recovery Monument and enhance the surrounding Monument Park.

Patrons of the Fort Recovery State Museum committed to installing lighting to illuminate the village's 101-foot-tall obelisk monument at night and to repairing a nearby sidewalk. Village government officials agreed to replace four streetlights in Monument Park with LED lamps and use underground wiring to eliminate unsightly overhead wires and metal poles.

The structure was dedicated in 1913 to memorialize those lost in the 1791 and 1794 battles with Native Americans under generals Arthur St. Clair and Anthony Wayne. Numerous people have worked hard over the last several years to bring awareness to the importance of the area now known as Fort Recovery, said Nancy Knapke, director of the Fort Recovery State Museum.

Lighting the monument will bolster those efforts.  

"It was a watershed moment in American history that happened here on the banks of the Wabash. It just changed the way the whole United States operated at that particular time in 1791, and it was at that point they wrote into the Constitution that there would be a standing army," Knapke said. "Even what happened here impacted the writing of the Constitution and the way the states worked together."

Stachler Concrete today is expected to put in a new sidewalk on the south side of the monument that will go to State Route 119, she said. The existing sidewalk has been cracked for some time and further damaged when heavy equipment was used in 2016 to restore the monument. The work is estimated and cost between $5,000 to $7,000 and will be covered by museum patron donations.

Then on Wednesday, Mercer Electric is scheduled to install equipment that will light the upper portion of the monument, making it visible for miles. This work is estimated to cost $48,575 and also will be covered by museum patron donations, Knapke said.

"The lights will be above head level so that it doesn't interfere at all with the viewing of the monument," she explained. "There are four aluminum poles that they're going to be setting for that. They also have three floodlight fixtures so that will give a broader light at the bottom and then they will do boring and excavation."

Also on Wednesday the streetlights in Monument Park are set to be replaced and financed through $15,000 in donations from community organizations that were secured by village administrator Randy Diller, Knapke said.

The lights have been on the village's streetlight contract since they were installed many years ago, and cost the village about $80 a month. The cost to power the four new LED lights will only be $16 a month, according to Diller.

Garmann/Miller Arch-
itects-Engineers drew up engineering, electrical and equipment plans for the lighting project that were approved by Ohio History Connection, which owns the monument, Knapke said.

"Garmann/Miller ag-
reed to do this without charging us for it, and we were really proud of the fact that Ryan Heitkamp and Chad Schroer, both local boys who work for this company, were able to do the majority of the work for us," she said.

Museum patrons and Fort Recovery Historical Society members had wanted to take on the lighting project for a long time.

"When the monument was redone back for the quasquibicentennial (village's 225th anniversary celebration) that we had in 2016, it was in the budget at that time that there would be lighting for the monument, but they ran out of money," she said. "(OHC) was actually going to do that as part of the monument renovation project."

That's when the museum's roughly 160 patrons decided to take on the project.

"We have really an outstanding group of patrons of the Fort Recovery of Museums, and the patron money each year brings in about $20,000, and we have been saving that since the time of before 2016," she said.

The monument should be lighted every night after the work wraps up this week. A ceremony may be held at Monument Park in the spring, depending on the status of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"They've always had services there on Memorial Day, and so that would be a great day to shoot for if COVID cooperates with this," she said.

The towering monument honors the men, women and children who died in the Battle of the Wabash, also known as St. Clair's Defeat in 1791, and in the Battle of Fort Recovery in 1794.

Composed of North Carolina gray granite, the monument was authorized by President William Howard Taft and constructed by the Van Amringe Granite company of Boston, Massachusetts, in late 1912. It was modeled after the Washington Monument, according to Knapke.