The Delaware County World War One Memorial
- On Baltimore Pike in Springfield to honor local veterans of World War Made of reinforced concrete to resemble Paris’ Arc de Triomphe, it stood over a bridge spanning Crum Creek. The structure was dedicated before an estimated 5,000 spectators by William I. Schaffer, a justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, who anticipated that its longevity would equal that of the Pyramids, the Acropolis and the monuments of Rome.
“[Our] valorous men … and what they did shall stand in remembrance as long as mankind’s most enduring combination of metallic elements—imperishable bronze—shall last,” declared Schaffer, pointing to two bronze tablets bearing the names of 280 men and two women killed in the war.
And then, after 32 years, the arch was demolished. In 1958, engineers tasked with widening the Plush Mill Bridge—named for the nearby manufacturer of upholstery fabric—said the arch was in the way and “a monstrosity.”
With the arch chiseled to rubble, the tablets were remounted on concrete slabs a few hundred feet west. That installation didn’t last, either. In 1988, the slabs were found to be in the path of Blue Route construction. So they went into storage while officials and surviving WWIveterans squabbled over where they should go. Vets favored the courthouse lawn; officials, the entrance to Smedley Park, near the original site of the arch.
Of the Smedley Park site, Gardner Smith, a 90-year-old WWI vet, said in 1988,“This place is a disgrace.”
Naturally, that’s where the tablets went, and they remain there today
Anthony Selletti PA Springfield Dec 23, 2021 Memorials War & Peace
Dec 23, 2021
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