Construction begins on Purple Heart monument at Linscott
It’s been almost a year since a group of local military veterans and their supporters started a fund-raising drive in hopes of putting up a local monument to honor Jackson County’s Purple Heart Medal recipients.
Now, ground work for the placement of a monument is under way, with a tentative unveiling date set for Friday, Nov. 11 — Veterans Day.
Mike McManigal of Holton’s American Legion Riders Post 44 said that ground was recently broken in Holton’s Linscott Park for the pouring of concrete footings and sidewalks for the monument. Mark Sullivan and the Sullivan Construction crew of Holton is doing the preliminary work for the monument.
“You’re going to see a lot of quick progress as Mark gets the footing and the sidewalk prepared,” McManigal said. “After that’s completed, it’s just a matter of waiting on the monument.”
The monument is being prepared by an area company with the goal of placement in Linscott Park prior to a planned unveiling on Veterans Day, McManigal noted. However, he added that if the monument isn’t ready by then, “we’ll just schedule it for a later date.”
In early November of last year, the Legion Riders, in conjunction with Holton American Legion Post 44, the Sons of the American Legion and Holton VFW Post 1367, announced the fund-raising drive to build a monument that lists and honors residents of Jackson County who have received the Purple Heart Medal. The medal is given to military personnel who are wounded or killed in the line of active military duty.
Both Holton and Jackson County received Purple Heart Community designations in 2014. It was reported at that time that many who came into Holton after seeing the Purple Heart Community sign at the city limits asked to know where they can go to learn more, but no such memorial existed here.
The local veterans’ organizations got together to see what they could do and came up with a plan to build a monument in Linscott Park facing north toward Fourth Street, near the World War II monument in that area. Plans for the monument included a replica of the Purple Heart on the front and a list of the medal’s recipients on the back.
Originally, the plan was to raise $25,000 to build the monument and have it ready for unveiling by this past Memorial Day. The fund-raising goal was met, but the monument would not be ready by the target date because of the amount of additional information received about the county’s Purple Heart recipients.
That information began with a list of about 70 names of Purple Heart recipients from Jackson County. Now, McManigal said, the list has grown to about 150 — and it’s still growing with every phone call or letter he receives about Purple Heart recipients not already on the list.
“What’s really neat is when someone from out of state hears about this project,” he said. “They get hold of me about a parent or a grandparent, and they always have an interesting story to tell about their loved one. They’re anxious to get that name on the monument, so we do the research we need to do to verify everything and we get them added.”
Anyone with information about a Jackson County resident who is also a Purple Heart recipient but may not have their name on the list of veterans to be honored on the monument may contact McManigal at 364-3131.
The Holton Recorder has so far published 30 stories in a series about Purple Heart Medal recipients from Jackson County. Information on Purple Heart recipients not yet profiled may be provided to The Recorder at 364-3141 or at holtonrecorder@giantcomm.net
