The Bartholomew County Memorial for Veterans is cordoned off as work continues to determine why the limestone pillars and granite pavers are deteriorating.
A number of lower panels have been removed from the pillars which stand on the Bartholomew County Courthouse lawn. Some strips of stone flooring have been taken up, and caution rope has been put up to limit access to the structure.
Although it may look as though the pillars have been vandalized, what is really going on is an investigation to determine why the 22-year-old memorial has sustained an unusual level of erosion and deterioration, Bartholomew County commissioner Larry Kleinhenz said.
On Jan. 29, the county commissioners agreed to pay Dunlap and Co. Inc. — which installed the $1.5 million memorial back in 1997 — a maximum $7,500 to figure out what is happening at the memorial.
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The company was originally asked to make two inspection openings in the limestone base, as well as remove two granite pavers, to get a closer look at the damage, commissioners chairman Rick Flohr said.
As it turned out, several lower panels had to be removed in order to get a better feel for repair directions, Kleinhenz said.
“I know it looks bad, but it’s part of the process,” the commissioner said.
Once specific problems are identified, Dunlap will hand over the details to DLZ Indiana, an engineering and design firm, to come up with solutions, Kleinhenz said.
Those solutions will be incorporated into project specifications required for permanent repairs, Flohr said.
Crews from Dunlap have said they hope to have the removed panels reattached to their appropriate pillars by the end of this week, Kleinhenz said.
While the facility should be cleaned up in time for the Memorial Day, Kleinhenz said bids to do permanent repairs will likely be sought in either June or July.
It’s been three years since an unusual level of erosion was discovered on several base pieces of the pillars. While the county received a $48,000 quote to replace those pieces back in 2016, county finances were too tight at that time to make the repairs, the commissioners said earlier this year.
Meanwhile, the deterioration has continued to accelerate in recent years, they said.
Although no tax dollars were used to create the memorial, it is going to take public funding to fix the erosion and deterioration, Kleinhenz said. In a five-year capital maintenance and improvement plan issued last spring, the commissioners set aside $300,000 to make repairs to the memorial.
Arranged in a 5-row by 5-row grid, the memorial has 25 pillars each standing 40-feet high. Originally, the memorial contained 170 names of Bartholomew County residents who died while serving in the military, as well as excerpts from diaries and last letters home.
The panels, which are all numbered, allow visitors to find individual veterans’ names and messages by matching the names in a guide book to the numbered location.
As more war-related deaths occurred and more families sought inclusion of lost loved ones, additions were approved that now brings the total number of names on the memorial to nearly 190.
